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Q. Mark Martin, a big race on Sunday. Season finale. You and Jimmie have talked already so much about what could happen. What is your sense this morning as you get ready to get in the car?
MARK MARTIN: I really like this racetrack. I love this championship weekend that they’ve built here through the years. It’s a real exciting weekend. I can’t wait to get to work with my guys. It feels really good to be here at the track with my team. I like the racetrack. It’s a fun racetrack. I can’t wait for the challenge.
Q. Mark, we go back a few years when Matt won his championship in 2004, there was a lot of complaints that things had gotten boring, it was a runaway. Now unless something happens on Sunday that’s going to be a big surprise, I think Jimmie is going to wrap four in a row. You’re going to try to make that not happen obviously. Is there anything that can be done to make things more competitive than that’s what happening right now with the current Chase format?
MARK MARTIN: Well, it doesn’t matter what you do, over the course of time there are going to be runaways and there are going to be thrillers, whether it’s points or just a racetrack. Same thing with a racetrack. You know, one race will be a runaway, and then you’ll have a bunch that are okay, maybe good but okay. Then every once in a while you’ll have a thriller.
That’s just how it works. Doesn’t matter what the track shape is or what the system is, it’s gonna happen.
Q. Although Roush Fenway hasn’t announced it officially yet, Jimmy Fennig we kind of expect may not be back as David Ragan’s crew chief. You worked with him for a long time. If this is his last race as a Cup crew chief, what do you want to say about him?
MARK MARTIN: I’m actually really happy for Jimmy. I think in some ways Jimmy is ready to cut back a little bit from the role, all the pressures of the role, that he has. I can’t announce what it is exactly that he’ll be doing, but I have a picture in my mind of what’s in store for Jimmy, and I think that he’ll be very, very happy. My expectation is that he’ll be happier than he is now moving forward with his new role. That’s my expectations. I’m not inside the group over there, but I think I know how things are going to play out and kind of what he’s going to be doing in a sense. My expectation is that he will be happier than he is now.
There comes that time when you have to make a shift in what you do, much like I did in 2007, catch your breath.
Q. This apparently is the only track Rick hasn’t won at. Is that hard to believe? How much does that drive the organization to try to get that this weekend?
MARK MARTIN: It’s just a little bitty bit. I mean, because we want to win every weekend, so how could we want to win that much worse here? Just a little bit worse. But, you know, it’s a small thing, but it is there.
Q. Does it surprise you?
MARK MARTIN: Well, yes and no. I mean, as I was explaining to Mike, kind of the same kind of logic applies to this as well. Sometimes your number just doesn’t turn up on the card, you know.
Biffle, you know, has had a very good handle on this place, and Tony Stewart. You know, there wasn’t a lot of wins to be passed around because of some of the guys that really hit this place right.
There’s no reason why we can’t win this weekend, why one of our cars can’t win, just because we haven’t before. I mean, I have no concerns whatsoever about the performance of my racecar. I’m very comfortable that what we’ve been doing is gonna work just as well here as other places.
