Mark Martin: Winless in Daytona

Mark Martin has 40 wins in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but none have come at Daytona. And although he captured his 49th career pole at the season-opening Daytona 500, Martin failed to hold on to the first place position and instead ended up finishing 12th.

It’s hard to find a Mark Martin fan though that doesn’t believe Mark didn’t actually win the 2007 version of “The Great American Race”, the Daytona 500. In fact, it’s hard to find any NASCAR fan that would admit they weren’t pulling for Martin to beat Kevin Harvick to the line that night in February.

Last year at the Coke Zero 400 Martin spun out early and finished 38th. He had a strong Speedweeks but will any of that momentum from February carry over to this weekend’s race? NASCAR has the new spoiler package in place and a wider restrictor plate will make things a little more dicey this weekend.

But will it be as crazy as Talladega was in April? According to Mark Martin, probably not.

“This is going to be a blend, a nicer blend of handling and drafting and packs and it's going to be a nicer blend I think than Talladega. But the thing that I saw in February here that I was really surprised, we weren't able to separate ourselves like we had been in the past,” he said yesterday. “We stayed packed up or locked on to one another even when it got almost down to one-two-three-four cars running together. We weren't able to shed one another like we had been in the past.”

And that will all change when Daytona gets repaved after this race, and before next year’s Daytona 500. “It's still going to be Daytona. It's still going to be narrow. And it's going to probably be pretty doggone hairy,” Martin said.

Matt Kenseth agreed. “When they repave it, and how Talladega is now, anybody can drive that,” Kenseth said. “You can hold it wide-open all day and never slip a tire and never do anything, so I enjoy the challenge of running down the straightaway and looking forward to the next corner and hoping you're gonna make it through and figure out how to negotiate through there the best you can. I think that's fun.”

“I would have to say that it should be incredibly exciting for the fans because it's going to be all new everything and it's definitely going to pack the cars up and going to lend itself to what we do,” Martin added. “It's going to lend itself to what we do at Talladega even more. So pull your straps down tight and let's go.”

Fans might even get to see some beating and banging come tomorrow night when the green flag is dropped on yet another Daytona race. Whether you love restrictor plate racing or hate it, one thing remains certain: Mark Martin isn’t much of a fan of it.

When one media member asked him, “You’ve never been a fan of restrictor plate races, but do you favor Daytona over Talladega?” The 51-year-old responded, “Yes, without a question, yes.”

It’s just strange that he’s yet to win there. Maybe this weekend will begin a streak of winning at places he’s never won before, including two of the next three tracks—Indianapolis and Pocono.