Martin

LAS VEGAS -- Mark Martin will be sure to savor this one.

Sure, he'll tuck it away and eventually focus on next week's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but Martin has a renewed sense of appreciation for success -- an appreciation he learned the hard way last season and has taught him better than to move past his third-place finish last Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway too soon.

Martin, a 43-year-old Arkansas native who has won 32 races in his 20-year Winston Cup career, had his worst season in more than a decade last year. He went winless for the first time in five seasons -- only the second time in 13 years -- and he also failed to finish a race in the top three for the first time in 14 years.

"When you're having a lot of success, sometimes you forget to stop and appreciate it all," Martin said. "I realized that last year‚ how fortunate I had been in the past to win so many races."

With that lesson learned, Martin pondered how he could get back to his competitive days. He came up with a risky move, which he proposed to team owner Jack Roush and, since Roush gave it the OK, has had an immediate impact on the team's fortunes -- as well as the fortunes of another Roush Racing team.

Martin noticed that, after decades in the sport, he had developed routines in how he approached situations at the track. He noticed, too, that one of the other teams in Roush Racing's stable of Winston Cup cars -- the No. 97 team -- was dealing with a lack of experience in handling situations at the track.

Perhaps the No. 97 team, with 23-year-old driver Kurt Busch, would benefit from the 16 years of experience that Martin's crew chief, Jimmy Fennig, offered. And just maybe Martin would benefit from bringing on board Busch's youthful crew chief, Ben Leslie, whose first full season as crew chief was last year. Martin hoped Leslie would bring new ideas and ways of dealing with the same old situations to the team.

	Mark Martin's last trip to Victory Lane was at Martinsville in April, 2000.

"It seemed like a good idea," said Jeff Burton, another Roush Racing driver and the man who Martin first approached with the thought. "But I think Mark was concerned about what he was giving up."

Martin and Fennig enjoyed a great relationship, and some great success, on the track over their five years together. They had won 14 races and finished third, second, third and eighth, respectively, in the four championship standings before last season.

What if the switch only worsened whatever problems were ailing the No. 6 team? What if they only fell deeper in the championship race than last season's 12th-place effort?

"We thought about it and we just decided we had to make a change," Martin said before this season began. "Sometimes its good to shake things up when they start to level off and that's where we were at."

Right away, both teams saw a difference. Martin finished sixth in the Daytona 500 while Busch finished fourth. And although Martin and Co. dipped down to a 21st-place finish the next weekend at North Carolina Speedway, last week's third place at Las Vegas has them sitting at fourth in the Winston Cup championship race.

But Martin is not prepared to call this season a turnaround. Not after a great run at Las Vegas. After all, he's always run well at Vegas. In five races at the track, he's won once and finished top five three times.

Martin has won at 16 of the 23 tracks that are currently on the Winston Cup circuit, but it will be interesting to see how he does at tracks like Pocono Raceway and Michigan International Speedway -- the next two tracks on the schedule where he has not won.

"This is a good race today," Martin said of Vegas. "Check with me after about 10 of these in a row and I'll tell you if it's a turnaround."

No matter what happens, Martin feels confident in himself, once again. There was a time last year when he was afraid he had forgotten how to compete in certain aspects of a race. Now, he knows he can -- and he'll be sure to appreciate that fact.

"This shows that we can go through the corners as good as other folks and, I'll be honest with you, that used to be my strong suit and I haven't seen that in a year," Martin said. "I haven't been able to run through the corners with these guys in a year, so I thought I forgot how but I'm gonna tell you something, that today was easy compared to what I had been doing. I'm telling you, that was easy compared to what I'd been doing. It's really hard back there in the pack."

Rupen Fofaria is a beat writer for the Raleigh News & Observer.