Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion, is fourth in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series point standings with three races remaining before the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Martin spoke about returning to Bristol Motor Speedway and further addressed his outlook for 2007.

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion – HAVE YOU MADE ANYMORE HEADWAY AS FAR AS DECIDING WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO IN 2007? “No. I’m just focused on what we’re doing right here. I had a lot of fun Wednesday night and I’m just gonna kind of wait and see what materializes here and see what looks exciting. That truck is an awful lot of fun.”

IF YOU STAYED IN CUP IS THERE ANY CHANCE YOU WOULD DRIVE FOR SOMEBODY OTHER THAN ROUSH? “There are certain scenarios that might bring that around. I’m interested in a limited schedule and, obviously, I would love to do that with Jack, but that would kind of mess up the 6 car. I wish they didn’t have a limitation on teams, but I’m not worried about it. I’ve got a chase to try to make. I’ve got it the best in the world. I have nothing to worry about for 2007 – nothing.”

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TRUCK RACE. “Thanks to Jack and all the guys on the Scotts team. They just had that Ford wired in. It’s such a pleasure to drive for those guys. You only hit it that good once every so often. Those guys are tough. You see Todd Bodine every race and he’s tough to beat, and there are so many other great drivers and great teams there. Believe me, I don’t take it for granted. It’s a privilege to drive for those guys.”

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN DO SATURDAY NIGHT TO TRY TO SOLIDIFY YOUR POSITION IN THE STANDINGS? “I’ll do everything I can, but I do everytime I come here and I’ve been in wrecks a lot as of late, so we’ll really focus on doing our best in qualifying and doing our best to stay on top of things in the race, but there are only so much you can do. You’re really powerless here to a bigger extent than anywhere else.”

IT LOOKS LIKE 50 FULL-TIME CUP TEAMS NEXT YEAR. WILL THAT BE GOOD FOR THE SPORT? “I guess it depends on who you ask. I think it will be really good for the fans. I think it is good for the sport. I think it’s the most exciting time in NASCAR. It’s thrilling to have Juan Montoya coming and Villeneuve, considering that’s a big move for where NASCAR has come and where it’s going. From a competitor’s standpoint, it will have to take your breath away. It’s gonna be bigger and better and tougher than ever before.”

HAS RACING THE TRUCKS PUT ANY EXTRA STRAIN OR PRESSURE ON YOU? “I’m stretched pretty thin this year, but I seem to be holding up pretty well. I’m doing a lot of neat stuff with AAA, helping them promote teen driver safety and things for them and all of our other sponsors as well. I’m driving a lot of stuff – 67 races – so it’s a lot, but it’s all going good. You caught me on a day when I’ve got a smile on my face, so I guess that’s a good thing. I feel like I’m on top of the world. I’ve got a truck team sitting there waiting for me that’s a dream come true and a lot of other interesting possibilities here. I’m driving for a great team with a great sponsor and have a shot at the chase. I don’t know what else a guy could ask for.”

WITH KENSETH RUNNING SO WELL IN RECENT RACES IS THERE ANYTHING OF HIS SETUPS THAT YOU CAN TRANSLATE TO YOUR CAR? “It’s not driving styles. We know what they’re running for setups. We can’t find the intimate details of what is making those work. It’s hard to get those intimate details out of them.”

WOULD A WIN HERE MEAN AS MUCH OR MORE TO YOU THAN ANY OTHER PLACE? “At this stage of the game a win anywhere would be a big deal. I’ve said a lot that you don’t get to choose where you win, you’re just lucky if you get the win, so I’ll take it wherever it comes. They’re running good. They will run good here. We know what they have here. We ran basically what they had last time and we ran sixth, but they are really good right now at some race tracks that we can’t run their setup. It would be nice, but they’re trying to win a championship too, so we’ll just have to see how things work out.”

IS THIS AS RACE AS UNPREDICTABLE AS A PLATE RACE? “It’s as unpredictable as Talladega. It’s right up at the top of the list for not having control of your own destiny. Certainly you need to run well here and you need to pit smart and all those things, but you can do everything right or you can do everything wrong and it doesn’t matter. If it’s your day to have a bad day, there’s not much you’re gonna be able to do about it.”

HOW MUCH DOES EXPERIENCE PLAY A PART HERE FOR A GUY LIKE DENNY HAMLIN? “Luck is way more important than experience, so if he’s got good luck on his side, he’s in great shape. It doesn’t matter how much experience you have here, if you’ve got bad luck, you’re not gonna do any good.”

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A RACE HERE WHERE IT ENDED AND PEOPLE WEREN’T ANGRY? “Yeah, but I can’t say that I look at everybody. I’ve walked away from here not knowing about any controversy.”

DO YOU THINK NASCAR IS A LITTLE MORE LENIENT HERE THAN MOST PLACES? “That’s a good question. From my standpoint, I think they’re equally consistent here as anywhere else, but that’s not the most fair viewpoint. My viewpoint is blurred by all the other things that go on, but my response to that question is I think it’s consistent.”

MAYBE YOU FEEL THAT WAY BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T BEEN THE VIOLATOR IN RECENT YEARS. “That’s true.”

EVERY DRIVER WHO RACES WITH YOU COMMENTS ABOUT HOW CLEAN YOU RACE. CAN YOU DO THAT HERE OR DO THEY HAVE TO SEE A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT MARK MARTIN HERE? “You can do it here, but they can’t abuse you. It they abuse me, then it’s different. But it can be done here and it can be done everywhere. It just depends on if someone thinks they’re gonna abuse or not. If they’re gonna abuse, then things might get a little tougher.”

ARE OTHERS MORE PRONE TO ABUSE YOUR STYLE AND FAIRNESS FOR CLEAN RACING HERE THAN AT OTHER PLACES? DO YOU FIND YOURSELF GETTING BEAT ON AND ABUSED MORE? “No, they’re more likely to not abuse me and abuse someone else because of my history.” SO YOU GET A BREAK HERE IN A WAY? “I get a break almost everywhere based on my history. That’s how I view it, but, certainly, you can’t give many breaks here. If I earn a break here, I typically always get it and where someone might not that doesn’t have the same history that I have. That’s how I feel about it. I race everyone. If someone earns a break with me on the race track, they get it – here or anywhere else. For the most part, I feel like I’m treated fairly out there and if it was to go the other way, then we can race people the way they race us and do to some degree.”

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCE AT THIS TRACK? “It wasn’t a big deal coming here. We raced Winchester and Salem, Indiana. I had heard about Bristol, but I knew it was a lot like Winchester and Salem, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. It wasn’t anything real different. Like the first time I went to Daytona, I had never seen anything like that but here, it wasn’t a shock because I had done a lot of racing at Winchester and Salem.”

YOU SEEM MORE RELAXED THESE DAYS? “I feel pretty tense. It’s been really hard to sleep the last week or two. It’s still pretty intense. I wish it wasn’t, but I still care just like this is my first time. I still care just as much.”

IS IT BECAUSE OF WHERE YOU ARE IN THE CHASE AS OPPOSED TO IT BEING THE LAST TIME? “I’m not thinking or considering about my future in racing. I’m thinking and considering now and from now until December. That’s all I’m really focused on.”


Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, trails points leader Jimmie Johnson by 58 going into tomorrow night’s Sharpie 500. Kenseth spoke about the deficit and his hopes for this weekend after Friday’s first practice session.

MATT KENSETH – No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion – IS THERE A MARKED DIFFERENCE RACING TOMORROW NIGHT VERSUS EARLIER IN THE YEAR HERE? “I don’t think it will honestly be that much different. It kind of pretty much ended up at night last time. Yeah, the track will maybe be a little slicker, but concrete doesn’t really change that much with temperature. It really doesn’t make much difference. We’re racing at night. We pretty much raced in the night time there too after all that snow, so you would think it would be a lot different, but I don’t really anticipate it being that much different.”

DOESN’T THE TRACK GET SLICKER WITH THE HEAT? “It does right now, but we’re not gonna race right now. If it was a day race, I think it would be a lot different, but being a night race, I don’t think it will be a ton different. It will be a little different, but not a lot.”

DO YOU HAVE THE SAME SETUP AS LAST TIME? “We’ve got the same car that we’ve run the last eight or nine races here, or something like that. We’ve run it forever, so we just brought that car back and we always start pretty much with the same thing we ran last race in the spring.”

DOES THIS TRACK REQUIRE MORE PATIENCE THAN ANYTHING ELSE? “Yeah, it depends on your position and your situation. If you’re stuck in the middle of the pack or the back of the pack and you have a really fast car, it requires a lot of patience. It’s almost impossible to get all the way alongside of somebody, so if you get under somebody and they don’t give it to you and you don’t have enough room, you’ve got to take your time and kind of pick your times when to pass and when not to and when to wait. If you have a good enough car to be up front, you don’t really have to be as patient, but, certainly, if you’re in the back and you’re faster than the guys in front of you, you have to be patient.”

THE CARS THAT WIN HERE SEEM TO NOT HAVE ANY MARKS ON THEM. “Yeah, it depends on the race. I’ve seen cars torn up in the front, but, usually, if you have a good enough car, you can pass and you don’t have to beat people out of the way. If you don’t knock people out of the way, most of the time you don’t get knocked out of the way back. That’s a good way of keeping your car clean.”

IT SEEMS QUALIFYING HASN’T BEEN AS IMPORTANT HERE LATELY. DO YOU AGREE? “I think qualifying is always important. I think since they put in one pit road it’s not as important as it was when there were two pit roads, but it’s as important as anywhere else. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t qualify great – if you have a good car – because it’s 500 laps. Every place we race at is pretty much a three-hour race. If you have the fastest car and start last, unless there are no cautions and these days you know there are going to be cautions because that’s just the way it is, you should have plenty of time to get to the front.”

LAST FRIDAY YOU THOUGHT YOUR CAR WAS TERRIBLE FOR A TIME AND THEN YOU WON THE RACE. DO YOU GET TIRED OF US ASKING WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN ON SUNDAY? “I can’t really even remember last week what our car drove like on Friday to be totally honest with you (laughing). You just don’t know. Sometimes you’ll have a feeling after you run a car if the car is driving good and it’s real fast on the speed charts, maybe you’ll have a certain feeling about it, but a lot of things can happen. Look at Greg today. He ran over somebody else’s oil and wrecked, so there are just so many things that can happen. I don’t ever like to make any predictions at all. I’d rather just wait and see what happens and then talk about it, but it would be hard to make a prediction anyway. Even if you have the best car, who knows what could happen in 500 laps. You only have four tires that don’t have much rubber on them. You’re out here running and you could run over a piece of debris or you could break something. You just never know.”

IF YOU COULD HAVE THE FASTEST CAR OR BE THE LUCKIEST DRIVER TOMORROW NIGHT, WHICH ONE WOULD YOU CHOOSE? “I’d take the fastest car anytime. It’s way easier to stay out of trouble when you have a fast car no matter what track you’re at. I learned that the last couple of years at Talladega and Daytona. I’d always complain about where we were running and get crashed, but since then we’ve had fast cars and we’d stay in the top five or six car draft and it’s a lot easier to stay out of trouble. It’s kind of true here, too. If you have a real fast car, you can hopefully be up front and have a better chance of staying out of trouble. It doesn’t mean you will, but you might have a better chance.”

WOULD YOU HAVE DONE ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY THE LAST TIME HERE WITH THE GORDON SITUATION? “Really nothing. Obviously, if I would have known he’d pull on the frontstretch because he was mad, I probably wouldn’t have run over to him right away. But if I had to re-do the race, I don’t think I could really do anything different. I just barely touched him. I didn’t even mean to hit him. I got a run under him the last lap and he kind of came down on me. We were racing for that position on the last lap. I just barely touched him and it was just the wrong place at the wrong time and he lost it. It’s not like I went in there and lifted his tires off the ground and wrecked him, so I don’t think I could have done much different. We were racing hard for the last two laps. He moved me up out of the way and I got back to him because he got slowed up for lap traffic and I was trying to pass him on the last lap. It wasn’t like I punted him out of the way, we were just too close.”

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF YOUR CAR OF TOMORROW TEST? “My personal test was terrible. We ran really bad. I was probably a half-second slower than other cars, so our test was bad. We didn’t run good. Our car was real unstable. We didn’t really know how to adjust it or what to do to it, so it was bad for us in one way and in another way it was good because it might have opened our eyes a little bit. As soon as the rules get 100 percent firmed up, we know we’ve got a lot of work to do before we come back. I guess this is the first race for it next year, so I realize we’ve got a lot of work. It’s a totally different animal than what we’re driving now, so it’s gonna be a lot of work and a lot of money spent – engineering, wind tunnel and tests at the track and bump stops – all that stuff – there’s gonna be a lot of money spent, a lot of engineering and a lot of work to figure it out.”

THERE’S SUPPOSED TO BE MORE ADJUSTABILITY. “I don’t think there’s gonna be more adjustability when we get to the track. I think there’s gonna be less unless there’s something I don’t know. Maybe aero-wise there will be stuff they’ll let you do with wings and stuff that I don’t understand that much about. As far as the cars, there’s gonna be less adjustability because the valance or splitter is four inches off the ground or whatever it is and it’s got to be four inches off the ground. If you get it a little higher, the car doesn’t handle right. If you get it where one side is higher than another, it won’t handle right. You’ve got to figure out how to keep that flat on the ground all the way around the track, so what are you going to adjust? You can’t change springs to get more travel. It’s sitting there solid. If you put rear springs in there, it’s gonna hit harder. If you take rear spring out, it’s gonna be higher in the air, so I don’t know. Once you get the platform all figure out with the bump stops and stuff, I don’t know what you’re gonna adjust. I think there’s gonna be very little adjusting.”

THEY SAY YOU’LL BE ABLE TO CHANGE THE SIDES OF THE SPLITTER OR BOLT ON A NEW SPLITTER? “That might be the case, but I really think everybody is just gonna run the max. You’re gonna run the biggest splitter in the front and the biggest wing in the back and the most sideforce and you’re just gonna put the most downforce you can in it and run it, I think, but I don’t know.”