Amidst all the hoopla over Kasey Kahne’s arrival in 2012, or maybe sooner, and Jimmie Johnson’s resurgence, there has been one team that has struggled mightily. Oddly enough, it’s the team that Kahne will drive for as late as the 2012 season; the No. 5 car, currently piloted by Mark Martin.
Last year at this time the No. 5 team was fighting for a berth in the Chase, barely hanging on to a 11th place spot, four points ahead of Kahne. This season Martin and the GoDaddy team are still in 11th and the cushion to the 13th place driver is 30 points before the July 4th race in Daytona. But that 13th place driver is the guy that the No. 5 team shares a garage with at the HMS compound; the No. 88 car of NASCAR’s most popular star, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Martin and Earnhardt Jr. started 1-2 at the season's first race (Getty Images)
Jenna Fryer, an Associated Press NASCAR writer, finally addressed the question this week after the race in Loudon. She asked Earnhardt and Alan Gustafson, the crew chief of the No. 5 team, about the resurgence of Earnhardt and the seeming tailspin that Martin is in.
“I think it helped us,” Earnhardt Jr. told Fryer. “I know Mark is struggling compared to last year. But it helped us as a team. (Engineer) Chris Heroy come over was a big deal for me and Lance both. I think he’s enjoyed being part of our group.”
Earnhardt Jr. is currently 13th in the standings, just three points behind Carl Edwards for the final spot in the Chase
Lance McGrew and Earnhardt have been together just over a year now, and while Earnhardt still hasn’t won since the June Michigan race in 2008, it seems that it’s only a matter of time before he does finally make his way back into Victory Lane.
Gustafson was riding a wave of success last season as one of the most successful crew chiefs in the business. Martin was 34th in the standings heading out of Atlanta in the spring, perilously close to falling out of the top 35 in points. Martin and Gustafson rallied the No. 5 squad, winning in dominating fashion at Phoenix, making Jimmie Johnson cry uncle at Darlington and outsmarting the field on fuel mileage in Michigan.
Martin's No. 5 car sat on the pole at Indianapolis last year
Three wins later and Gustafson had his childhood hero in the Chase, right where they wanted to be. One year later though, Martin isn’t having the results he’s expected. “We’re doing a better job than last year at executing with what we have. We’ve done a really great job of racing and bringing home good finishes for where we are,” Martin told Jay Hart of Yahoo! Sports.
“The back side of that is that we’re not as fast as we were a year ago, and that’s based on chasing a moving target with rules changes and tire changes and car changes and competition being a moving target.”
And he’s right. Aside from the pole he had at Daytona, Martin hasn’t been the quickest car all year. He has lacked the speed that he had last year at so many places. But Gustafson blames the lack of speed on his failure to adjust to the new spoiler package on the Sprint Cup cars. And he won’t blame Martin’s lack of performance on the off-season changes that moved an engineer and a mechanic to Earnhardt Jr.’s team, a directive that came straight from the boss, Rick Hendrick. It was a move that was supposed to strengthen Junior’s team. Mission accomplished.
“If I was somebody who was not involved in this everyday, that is what I would say because that is the most obvious and makes the most sense,” Gustafson said. “I think it’s wrong. I do think our shop has made a net gain, even though we haven’t won any races. The 88 is significantly better than what they were. So I think the team strength is a lot better.”
As fans we aren’t involved with the day-to-day operations of the teams, but for the past few months Mark Martin fans have noticed that the No. 5 car hasn’t been everything that it was last season. Although the ’09 season was almost a dream season for fans of the now 51-year-old, the success that Martin and the Hendrick team had last season surely came with expectations this season.
And maybe they are meeting those expectations, as Gustafson pointed out. But the question that I’d love to ask Rick Hendrick (and the word is still out on the Brickyard media pass as of right now) is, “Would you sacrifice Mark Martin in the Chase for Dale Earnhardt Jr.”
I’d believe his answer would end up being something along the lines of, “Well, we’d love to get both of them in, and there’s still time to do it.”
But, as Jenna Fryer pointed out, Jr.’s success could come at the expense of Mark Martin. And there’s something that doesn’t sit well with Mark Martin fans.
However, Fryer noted in a story she did on Monday that maybe the apparent demise of the No. 5 team has to do with Martin being a lame-duck driver. Maybe moving resources and workers to the No. 88 team was Hendrick’s way of pushing Martin out the door. Even though Martin said there was a, “zero percent” chance he’d be driving something other than the No. 5 car next year, speculation runs rampant about who will be where in 2011.
Kahne will be vacating the No. 9 car at the end of the season. Where will he be in 2011?
“This is a tough spot for Hendrick, Martin, Gustafson and the entire No. 5 team, particularly considering that Kasey Kahne has already locked into that ride for 2012,” Fryer wrote. “It’s left Hendrick trying to find a place to stash Kahne next season, and although Martin is adamant he’s not vacating his seat a year early, I’m not convinced it won’t happen.”
She says why not put Martin in the No. 83 car next season if Brian Vickers isn’t medically cleared to race? Vickers has made the Red Bull Racing team very good over the past few years, and Martin’s friend Jay Frye (formerly at Ginn Racing when Martin was there) certainly wouldn’t disagree with having a veteran race winner on his staff.
Could Mark Martin be driving a Red Bull Racing car in 2011? Jenna Fryer of the AP certainly thinks so
But Mark Martin in an energy drink car? It just seems a little odd. Until Friday afternoon’s announcement of a “New Cup Team” on NASCAR.com, I’m not sure what anyone’s plans are for the 2011 or 2012 season.
And if anything is worth betting on, it’s the fact that Hendrick will do everything in his power to make sure Dale Earnhardt Jr. makes the top 12. Financially, it’s a smart maneuver. But will Mark Martin be there too? We’ve got nine races to see what happens next.
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