In recent years, NASCAR teams (especially at the Sprint Cup level) and sponsors have seemed to turn their focus to younger talent when it comes to choosing a new driver. That trend has probably been mostly initiated by sponsors looking for younger, hipper spokesmen for their products.
Mark Martin is showing race teams that younger may not always be the way to go, especially if the focus is to remain on the on-track results side of things and not just on a sponsor's desire to target the younger crowd.
Granted, the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup is only two races old, but Martin, the oldest guy in the Chase field at 50 years of age, looks poised to win his first Cup title. And that's after he tied Kyle Busch for most wins during the 26-race "regular season" with four.
In the two races since this year's Chase began, New Hampshire and Dover, the "old man" has a win and a second-place finish and has been the only driver to lead in points so far in the 2009 Chase. Not bad for a driver who is in his first full-time season since coming out of semi-retirement.
"I said in February before we got started that I was, you know, mentally the toughest I'd ever been," Martin said.
Martin isn't the only 50 or older driver getting it done on the national level in NASCAR either. Ron Hornaday, at age 51, is on track to win his fourth Camping World Truck Series title, the most of any driver in the series. It would be his second in three years.
Hornaday already has six wins in Truck Series competition through 20 races, so the driver in victory lane following truck events in 2009 has been Hornaday nearly one-third of the time. With 16 top-10 finishes to his credit, only has four finishes this season outside the top-10 so far this year.
Also worth mentioning, those six wins include a streak of five-consecutive trips to victory lane, the longest winning streak ever in Camping World Truck Series history and the longest in any of NASCAR's national touring series since the 1970s.
While many of their younger competitors may sometime seem to be all business and get stressed out worrying about on-track performance issues, according to Martin and Hornaday, they're just having fun.
"I feel like I’m the luckiest man in the world to compete on this level on this stage and have no thoughts other than I want to strap in that car every Sunday," Martin said.
Not long ago, Hornaday said that traveling from racetrack to racetrack in the Truck Series is like a vacation for he and his wife Lindy. He said the the kids were grown and now he and his wife were enjoying themselves from race to race and week to week.
While 50 is considered over the hill and most other professional sports (except for maybe golf), Martin and Hornaday are proving that they are in their prime since hitting the half-century mark.
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Louisville NASCAR Examiner
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