It seemed unlikely that Mark Martin would ever stand a real chance of winning. After all, he’s 50 years old. Sure he has had a noteworthy past, sure he knows how to negotiate his way around the high banked turns of Talladega and Charlotte, sure he has the desire and sure he has some Hendrick prepared equipment to work with now but was all that really going to be enough to pave his way to victory lane, even once? The testosterone level alone that’s omnipresent in the NASCAR garage on any given day would seem sufficient to move those of his ilk to the back of the bus and keep them there with the rest of the field fillers like Cope, Marlin and Andretti.

Money can buy a lot of things and in the case of NASCAR; the coin of the realm is speed. After leaving Roush, Martin retired and then returned on more than one occasion to race with equipment that was marginal in preparation and short on funding. For a lot of fans it really didn’t matter, though. It was just good to see him back once again mixing it up with the kids. Little did they know that there was still a tiger lingering in the tank, waiting for a chance to reassert himself once the planets were in alignment and the moon was full and bright.