Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 AAA Fusion, is in sixth place in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup points standings heading into this weekend’s race. Martin, who is competing in his last Cup season, has three top-10 finishes in five previous starts at Chicagoland Speedway.

MARK MARTIN – No. 6 AAA Fusion – IT’S BEEN SUGGESTED THAT THERE MAY BE SOME CHANGES TO THE CHASE, STARTING NEXT YEAR. DO YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS? “Oh, yeah. Without a doubt, the Chase needs to – you should’ve asked me that a year ago because I was saying it a year ago – the Chase needs to be 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. If it’s about entertainment, that would make entertainment. That way you couldn’t get buried because you finished 43rd in a race. That’s the formula it needs to be. Once you make the Chase, you take them 10 guys and put ’em over there and they race on another points schedule. That would keep it interesting a lot longer.”

DO YOU THINK THERE NEEDS TO BE MORE THAN 10? “No, I don’t. I really don’t think so. I think that’s enough. If there’s more than 10 guys, where do you cut it off? You just put ’em all in and then you have what you had before. It is a great system. I love it. I just don’t think you should have all the other guys who aren’t in the Chase take you out of the running for the championship. They can. If they all pile in between you and the leader because you had a bad day then it’s really difficult to recover from that. But, if it was just 10-9-8…, man, that would keep it going.”

WITH THE 10 CHASE DRIVERS RUNNING UNDER A SEPARATE POINTS SYSTEM, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ANY BONUS POINTS AWARDED FOR A VICTORY? “I wouldn’t. It’s about entertainment. I wouldn’t. I’d just do 10-9-8… right down the line.”

MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACKS ARE IMPORTANT DOWN THE STRETCH. IS THIS TRACK, CHICAGOLAND, SIMILAR OR DIFFERENT TO THE OTHER 1.5-MILE TRACKS ON THE CIRCUIT? “It is Chicago and there only is one Chicago, but it is similar to some of them – a little bit more akin to Kansas than any of them. But, they’re all different. They may look the same, but they don’t race the same.”

DO YOU LIKE RACING HERE? “This one’s okay. It gets better all the time, every year, with age on the pavement. It’s been getting better every year.”

ON HIS 2006 SEASON, SO FAR. “We’ve had a lot of frustrations this year, especially on pit road. We’ve been so close to having the best year of my career that it’s been a little frustrating at times when we let that slip through our fingers, but we have all the ingredients to still make this the best year of my career.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO YOU TO GET A WIN IN YOUR FINAL SEASON? “I’m not worried about it.”

LAST YEAR, ALL FIVE ROUSH DRIVERS MADE THE CHASE. WHAT ABOUT THIS YEAR? “It’s going to be tough to put five in there, but it can be done. These guys, they’re all comin’. A bunch of ’em got off to slow starts, but they’re matching strong right now.”

TODD KLUEVER IS ATTEMPTING TO MAKE HIS CUP DEBUT THIS WEEKEND. HOW MUCH HAVE YOU WORKED WITH HIM, AND ARE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT HIM DIFFERENT FROM OTHER TEAMMATES BECAUSE HE’S YOUR DESIGNATED SUCCESSOR? “Unfortunately, with 66 races on my schedule, I don’t spend a lot of time with anybody. I’m doing everything that I can to help prepare him for full-time Cup stuff next year, but I certainly don’t get much credit for spending time, because there’s not very much time that I’m getting to spend with him.”

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM? “He’s great to work with. He’s got a great relationship with the sponsors, really good to work with from a team standpoint and he has a lot of confidence, and we’re working real hard to give him the fast track kind of experience that he needs to be ready to do this.”

BECAUSE OF YOUR EMOTIONS FOR THIS TEAM, IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU TO SEE THE NO. 6 DO WELL AFTER YOU’VE LEFT? “It is. That’s why I’m driving the car now. It’s important that the 6 car succeeds, and I’ll do everything I can do. I already have and I will continue to do everything I can to see that it happens.”

HE RESPECTS YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY. HE UNDERSTANDS HE’S REPLACING SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN DOING THIS A LONG TIME. “One of the reasons why we picked Todd – and ‘we’ being all of the folks at Roush Racing – is because we saw maturity in him and the potential, from the driver’s standpoint, but the maturity to be a great person to work with and good marketability, sponsors to be able to enjoy working with him, and that’s all played out as we expected, so far. So, all that was taken into account when the decision was made. Just trying to get him the experience as fast as we can. We’re pushing him, we’re pushing him to get there in a hurry. Don’t have as much time as you might like to let him develop. We’ll have to take the fast track.”

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIS DRIVING ABILITY? “He doesn’t make stupid mistakes, which is a great thing. We don’t have time to train out a bunch of goofy stuff. He’s a real solid guy, solid driver, makes good decisions in the race car, doesn’t tear much up. We’re off to a great start there. I don’t think that we’ve given him the best of equipment yet, and, unfortunately, so therefore I don’t think we’ve given him a chance to show everything he can do. I don’t think we’ve put him in a position to do that yet. We’re working hard at that. It’s a competitive business and it’s not easy to make all that happen in a timely schedule.”

IF YOU COULD GIVE HIM ONE PIECE OF ADVICE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? “I guess, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

DO YOU HAVE A DIFFICULT TIME RELATING TO HIS OPPORTUNITY? HE, BASICALLY, WAS ASSIGNED TO A TOP-FLIGHT CUP CAR BEFORE HE HAD EVEN RUN A LAP IN THE BUSCH SERIES. IS THAT DIFFICULT FOR SOMEBODY FROM YOUR GENERATION TO RELATE? “That’s a stretch for everyone. It’s a stretch for him, it’s a stretch for the sponsors, it’s a stretc for everyone. But we have all seen the potential in Todd to be able to do this. And that’s why it happened – because we see the potential that we believe in Todd and we believe he can do it.”