FanHouse Hendrick Motorsports

It's fair to say Mark Martin wasn't always a glass-half-full kinda guy.

Even a decade ago while piling up wins in the midst of four championship runner-up seasons as the lead driver for a more streamlined Jack Roush organization, Martin wasn't exactly effusive or happy-go-lucky. Even in victory circle he tended to analyze what went wrong instead of what went right.

Mr. Sunshine he was not.

BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) -- The most surprised person to find Mark Martin in Victory Lane at Michigan International Speedway was the driver himself.

The 50-year-old NASCAR star has run well but has had to deal with considerable bad luck this season. It looked like more of the same Sunday when the battery in his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet began to fail before the halfway mark in the LifeLock 400 Sprint Cup race.

Martin turned off everything in the car that he could, nursing it as best he could. Then he realized the race was going to be a fuel economy run.

There's been a lot of hubbub recently over Dale Earnhardt Jr. becoming the Frank Sinatra Jr. of NASCAR. However you feel, everybody should agree on one thing.

Thank goodness the Junior Nation wasn't running the show back in 1776. If it had we'd all have British accents and be curtsying before royalty.

Sure, he didn't get the race win and he certainly didn't challenge for it. The No. 88 didn't finish in the Top-10 and it never led a lap.

But was Sunday's Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway a rousing improvement for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s, uh, lackluster season? Can we really say a 12th-place finish is a good thing for a Hendrick Motorsports driver?

Well, in this situation, your darn right we can -- even though driver No. 88 may not exactly agree.

DOVER, Del. (AP) -- Kyle Busch couldn't resist taking a poke at the driver who replaced him at Hendrick Motorsports.

Busch's career has skyrocketed since signing with Joe Gibbs Racing, while Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s sagging career has hit an all-time low. On Wednesday night, team owner Rick Hendrick had enough, firing Earnhardt's longtime crew chief Tony Eury Jr. in an attempt to salvage the season.

After months of speculation this would or should happen, team owner Rick Hendrick made the move Thursday to replace Tony Eury Jr. as crew chief on the No. 88 Chevrolet driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr., effective immediately.

While the other three drivers in the championship Hendrick Motorsports stable have won races this year, Earnhardt has struggled mightily -- including a season-worst 40th-place effort Monday at Charlotte, placing Earnhardt 19th in the points standings.

For one driver, getting older in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series just means getting better.

50-year-old Mark Martin will drive the full 2010 schedule in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 car, according to the Associated Press. Martin returned to full time competition in 2009 with a two year deal at Hendrick after running partial schedules since 2007, and it was originally expected that 2010 would be another partial schedule for the driver.

While the news may be good for Martin fans, surprise Talladega winner Brad Keselowski is now somewhat on the outside looking in for 2010 if he wants to pursue racing in NASCAR's top division.

Almost like a scientist tries to forecast an earthquake or a volcano, the alert level keeps rising when it comes to the discussion of Sprint Cup driver Jeff Gordon and his back.

Friday afternoon at Richmond International Raceway prior to Saturday night's 400-lap race, Gordon revealed that he went in for an MRI over the week and found out some more information to more accurately diagnose his back problems.

And while Gordon's ailment hasn't reached a tipping point, he's not divulging what information he learned this week quite yet.

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- You fly two flags here: the red-white-and-blue and the red double-eights. Every third fan is wearing some version of Dale Earnhardt Jr. merchandise -- hats, t-shirts, face tattoos honoring the No. 88 Chevrolet he'll drive at Talladega Superspeedway Sunday.

The cars, campers, converted school buses and pick-up trucks come from Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and faraway places like Wisconsin and New York, making the trek to NASCAR's biggest track located in the serene Birmingham foothills to witness stock car racing at its fastest, most dicey best.

And based on souvenir sales, Internet popularity contests and grandstand audibles, most of the nearly 200,000 people here this weekend will be pulling for Earnhardt.

This is a stock car pilgrimage. Talladega is NASCAR's version of Woodstock. And Earnhardt is its Jimi Hendrix.

Here's a glance at Mark Martin's first victory since 2005 Saturday night at Phoenix International Raceway as FanHouse takes you by the Sprint Cup Numbers:


.005 - Amount of elapsed time Kyle Busch exceeded NASCAR's pit road speed limit by on the final pit stop. The penalty took him from Martin's bumper as the nearest challenger to the back of the pack.

.734 - Seconds Martin finished ahead of second-place Tony Stewart

2.135 - Martin's average running position Saturday night, best of all drivers.