Mark Martin, driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion, finds himself in eighth-place, 201 points behind first, after being involved in an accident late in last weekend's NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Martin spoke about his chase chances after practice on Friday.

MARK MARTIN - No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion - IS TOO MUCH BEING MADE OF THE BUMP IN ONE AND TWO? "To get right to the problem, the problem is we're coil-binding springs so we have no suspension when we go across that bump. It becomes a problem when you don't have any front suspension, but on the old springs it wouldn't be much of a problem or wouldn't be a problem really to speak of because we're virtually zero suspension."

WILL IT AFFECT THE RACE? "Not problems, but you have to work around that. I don't really think it'll cause anymore issues. If a guy is loose and he goes across that and the front scoots up and he doesn't know to release some steering wheel, then he'll spin out. But most of these guys are awfully sharp and awfully good and we find ways to spin out without bumps. The reason people are talking about it is we don't have any cushion for that."

DO YOU HAVE TO TIP-TOE THROUGH ONE AND TWO? "I think we work on our cars and make it better. To be honest, I would hate to see them fix it because a new piece of asphalt across there, whew. I think everybody loves this asphalt, so, personally, I'll take the bumps. I'll take the great with the not-so-great."

IS THIS A VASTLY DIFFERENT TRACK THAN '97 AND '98? "It's not even in the same area. It's not the same. It's a great race track and I would hate to see them pave on it right now. It's awfully good." WHERE DO YOU STAND ON THE CHASE? "The same as always pretty much. Obviously we're too far back now, but it's been a great year. I've got a great team and we're digging as hard as we can. We go out here and race for the front like we do every week and we'll see if we can come up with one."

HOW MANY POINTS DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO BE WITHIN TO HAVE A CHANCE GOING INTO HOMESTEAD? "I don't know. You're reaching too deep. I'm not sure why you would even ask that question. Let's just go racing."

JUNIOR SAYS HE NEEDS TO BE WITHIN 20 AND JIMMIE SAYS WITHIN 30. "Yeah, but 90 would work. You just have to be real lucky and nobody wants to have to be real lucky. It can work from anywhere within striking distance, but it all has to be just right for you. It all has to line up just right. Just look at Kurt Busch's win when the wheel came off, meaning he couldn't have steered it. He missed the wall by six inches and he won the championship. It was six inches or less from being fifth in the points, so anything can happen. Let's just watch and see what happens."

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE YEAR SO FAR? "I think the fans have made it the year of my career, that along with being able to savor a great opportunity and having a shot at the championship, making the chase one more time and the time I've been able to spend with the competitors and savor all this time and all this history."

HOW MUCH FUN HAVE YOU HAD WITH THE TRUCKS? "I've had a lot of fun in the trucks. I've had a good deal of fun in the Cup car. I've had my ups and downs and our frustrations have run as high as ever and our fun meter has been pegged at times this year, so it's all good."

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THE FORGOTTEN VICTIM OF THE ROLL BAR PADDING CAUTION? "It's just unfortunate. You have to be just in the right place at the right time to either miss or be caught up in one. If I would have been 20 feet further forward or 20 feet further back, which is pretty incredible after 475 miles, I'd have been alright, but I wasn't so I accept it. I'm very grateful for the fans and how they've supported me this year. Their cheers the last half a dozen races have meant a lot more to me than a Cup trophy would."

ARCHIE MANNING IS ONE OF THE MOST BELOVED FORMER QUARTERBACKS AND HE SEEMS TO GET MORE POPULAR WITH THE FANS EVERY YEAR. DO YOU THINK YOU COULD HAVE A BETTER RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FANS AFTER YOU STOP RUNNING FOR TITLES? "That would be incredible. I hate to see a decline. It's at an all-time high today. The cheers that I got the last half-dozen races has meant more to me than a Nextel Cup trophy would and we'll have to see what next year brings, but I think the fans appreciate the fact that no matter how many times I've got knocked down, I brush myself off and try not to complain too much and come right back at 'em. I love this sport and I'm not ready to be a spectator. I'm a big fan of this sport, but I'm not ready to be a spectator yet. I still have some good racing left in me and I want to get out there and do it. I appreciate the kind of support I've had, especially this year."

DO YOU KNOW ANYMORE ABOUT YOUR TRUCK SCHEDULE FOR NEXT YEAR? "We're waiting on the Woods to come up with a sponsor. You know, you push too hard too soon for answers when there weren't answers, so I can't give you answers. I don't expect things not to work out. They're looking to secure a sponsorship and we're looking at Daytona to be the first one. I'm in the process of starting to assemble my Busch and Truck schedule at this time and as they come up with sponsorships, we'll see if we add more or less to the number of approximately five. It's possible to do more and I don't expect to do less than that."

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TERRY LABONTE'S LAST RACE? "I'll have a better perspective on that answer after Bristol because that's gonna be the first one that I sit out. I feel a lot of different emotions towards him and all that. He knows more of what he's approaching than I do because he's been on a limited schedule. I just want everybody to happy and I want Terry Labonte to be happy. I hope that he's able to do that because all of us here one day won't be able to do the thing that we most love and that's hard to come to grips with."

DID TERRY CALM THE WATERS AT HENDRICK IN YOUR OPINION AND BECOME A CATALYST FOR THEM? "He very well could be because Terry is methodical, even-keeled and I'm sure he brought some stability to them. They were able to build strength and build momentum and really get on the right track and done a good job of staying near the top of their game, which is something no one can do in this business. Some can stay closer than others, but you can't always be at the top of your game because of the rate of competition in this sport."

WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF RUNNING A LIMITED SCHEDULE? "The pros, obviously, is it's just a brutal schedule. I don't have to go into that and that applies to everyone, even the team members. It sometimes prevents you from preparing as thoroughly as you'd like to, but there are a lot more negatives or hardships created by that because it's hard to fund a team that races on a part-time schedule in any way, shape or form that can compete against the big ones that are rockin' and rollin' all the time. That's the real difficulty and the downside of it, trying to figure out how to be competitive with that, but we believe if you can do it with a full-time team and split the drivers up, then that's an opportunity for the best of both worlds for me. It's an opportunity for it to be at least."

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, leads the series point standings with three races remaining. Kenseth spoke about his 26-point lead over Jimmie Johnson just before qualifying on Friday at Texas Motor Speedway.

MATT KENSETH - No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion - WHAT ABOUT THE BUMP IN ONE AND TWO? "Is there a bump down there? (laughter) "It's the same that it's been the whole time. It's fine. I'm the last guy who is gonna complain about bumps because I don't want them to repave it and have it be single-groove again. It widens out. There's a pretty big bump down there, but I don't think it's any bigger than last time. I notice the one in three and four. I didn't remember that being there last time, but that's the one I notice. I didn't notice the one in one and two being any different."

MARK SAYS THERE'S NO SUSPENSION GOING THROUGH ONE AND TWO. "Yeah, but it's the same for everybody. If they could fix the bumps, that would be great, but I sure wouldn't want them to repave the whole track. That's the way this place is for some reason. It settles around and I think that's why they've repaved it so many times as they have just because the track moves around a little bit. It's all right. It's the same for everybody. We all have to run through it."

YOU DESCIRBED YOUR CHASE AS SLOPPY A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO. DID LAST WEEK HELP YOUR CONFIDENCE? "I always knew that we're capable, but I certainly have a little bit more confidence after last week just because we performed pretty well - not quite as good as the 20 and the 48 and even the 8 car, really, but we performed pretty good. We were a top five or top sevenish car most of the day and got a good finish out of it and this weekend, so far, we've been running OK, so I feel good about it, but we've got to go out and lead laps. You're gonna have to be a contender to win to be able to pull it off. The 48 and them guys are just too good. You're not gonna finish eighth and win it. You're gonna have to go out and lead laps and be a contender to try to win and that's what we're gonna try to do and, hopefully, get our stuff to run good enough to do that."

HOW INTENSE WILL THE NEXT THREE RACES BE? "Just as intense as every other week has been this year. Every race, in my opinion, is about the same. They're all intense. You're out trying to win every week and you're racing against 42 other teams and everybody's out there that's hungry for wins and good finishes, so I think it will be as intense as it always is."

HOW MUCH MORE NERVEWRACKING IS THIS THAN WHEN YOU WON THE TITLE BEFORE? "So far it's really not at all, really. So far, 2003 has probably been the most stressful year I've probably had in racing besides 2001 when we just ran so bad, but even though it seemed like we had a big lead there every week counting toward the championship, where this year we were pretty solidly in the top 10 most of the first 26 races, so we weren't really stressed too much about missing the chase and that kind of helped us focus on cars and everything. It hasn't been too bad. Our team has been performing great this year. I feel like we've got a good shot at it, but anything can happen. We've got to go out and do the job every week and go out and run as hard as we can and see where it stacks up."

IS THE 48 THE TEAM TO WATCH? "Right now you would say yes because of how he's run the last three races. I think he's run first or second every week for three weeks, so right now you'd say yes, but that can change after Sunday. As we've seen, it's changed almost every week of the chase as far as who it seemed like the guy was. Kevin won the first race and then it looked like Burton was the guy and then he blew up and had troubles, so any of us can have trouble at any time. You don't really know who the guy is, I don't think, until you get down to the last race."

YOU SEEM VERY CALM ABOUT ALL OF THIS? "Being worked up about it isn't gonna make us more productive or make us run better or make anything go better, so you've just got to go and do everything that we've done all year and that we always try to do every week and that's to try to lead laps and try to win races and collect as many points as we can and hope our pile is bigger than the next guys."

HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS TRACK? "I love coming here to Texas. It's a great track. It's really widened out the last couple of years. I think the last few races were great. The track got really wide and you could pass from all sides and that's something that we didn't used to have here right after they made it, so I think the racing with these cars has been really good all year. I feel like there have been multiple grooves everywhere, even tracks where it usually hasn't been like Kansas and Chicago and places like that. So right now I think the racing is pretty good."

IS THIS PLACE VERY DIFFERENT FROM WHEN YOU WON HERE? "It's not as different as what the cars are and their setups and the rules and the stuff we learn. That's the biggest thing. That changes each and every time you come to a track it seems like. I don't think the track is really that much different."

WOULD WINNING A TITLE THIS YEAR BE VINDICATION TO WINNING IN 2003? "I don't know. We've got to do it first and then I guess I would think about it. I'm thankful we won it the year we won it, for sure, the way everybody else did for the last 30 years or more before that. I think that was pretty cool and I haven't even thought about it. You've got to do the work first and then think about it."

ANYTHING DIFFERENT TO RALLY THE TROOPS LATELY? "Not really. We haven't really needed to be rallied, really. There were some mistakes that we were making that certainly had to be addressed and get everybody to make sure we all take care of our own jobs. Some of that has been addressed and some of the mistakes that we made the last few weeks on the car and stuff like that, but, other than that, everybody has been pretty much business as usual."

HOW TOUGH HAS THIS SEASON BEEN ON ROBBIE? "Honestly, I think this is probably about the happiest and less stressed as I've ever seen Robbie, to be honest with you. I think last year was a super, super tough year on Robbie with his dad and everything else going on, and this year he's seemed to me anyways to be more relaxed and more content and happy to be doing the job and everybody is getting along probably more than any other year I remember in a long time."

HOW MUCH WILL THIS TITLE BE DECIDED BETWEEN DRIVERS AND WHAT YOU GUYS ARE DOING BEHIND THE WHEEL? "It all depends. Obviously, the driver is a big part of it but you can't do it without the equipment. It's everybody. It's a team effort, it really is, and everybody has to do their jobs. I can't put it on top of the tires like I did at Dover a couple of years ago. You can't do something like that, but you also have to have the car to be able to compete. You can't go out there and you just have to go out and do the things you know how to do. You can't go out there and ride around in 20th and say, 'Oh, I'm not gonna make a mistake. I'm gonna ride around 20th and finish there.' That's not gonna get you points, so you've got to go out and go as hard as you can go and try to get the best finish you can."

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THE ROLL BAR SITUATION AND NASCAR'S RESPONSE? "I think it was a good response. You've got to do something. You can't just have people create cautions whenever they need them. We already have a lot of cautions that a lot of times you don't know why you have them, so we certainly don't need more of them."