Drivers taking notice of Martin's part-time success

CONCORD, N.C. -- Jeff Gordon never would have considered it. Who would sponsor him? How would he run for a championship? Competing one day on a partial schedule seemed anathema to everything he had learned over his illustrious Cup career, which taught him that you run every race or you don't run at all.

Then he saw Mark Martin, contending for race wins and lingering on the outer fringe of the Chase for the Nextel Cup, all while spending a few weekends at home. And his mind began to change.

Mark Martin

2007 results (eight starts)

Race	Site	Start	Finish
1	Daytona	26	2
2	Fontana	3	5
3	Las Vegas	14	5
4	Atlanta	4	10
7	Texas	6	3
8	Phoenix	20	12
10	Richmond	9	17
11	Darlington	37	14

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"I can tell you what, what Mark has done has probably extended my career," Gordon said at Lowe's Motor Speedway, site of Sunday's Coca-Cola 600. "It's now going to make me look at when that day comes when I feel like I can longer race full time in the Cup Series. I might still want to race part time."

He's won 35 races on NASCAR's premier circuit, come heartbreaking close to winning a title four times, and done it all with class and grace. But Martin's most enduring legacy could be proving that it's possible to race at a championship level without racing every week. The man who once made 621 consecutive starts currently stands 15th in points, well within reach of a berth in the 12-man Chase. This despite competing part time, with three fewer races than everyone else.

"I've run them all for several years and not been this high in the points," Martin said. "I guess that speaks highly for what we've done when we were on the track."

Martin is scheduled to make 26 starts this season for Ginn Racing, and may add one more if the impending birth of Gordon's daughter forces Hendrick Motorsports to use him in a substitute role at Infineon Raceway. That's not enough to keep him in championship contention, but it has been enough to catch the attention of drivers past and present, and convince them that a partial schedule can work.

"If I'd have thought that, I'd still be driving the car," said former champion Rusty Wallace, who retired after the 2005 season and moved into the television booth. "I'd have taken a week off and relaxed a little bit and did that. If I look back on my career right now, and I love the television, but I wish I had done a partial schedule. If I had done a partial schedule, I could have been content with that. Because what really got me was being on the road 36 weeks. I just didn't enjoy it." (Continued)