With luck on his side, Martin coasts to a win at Michigan

A focus on individual races instead of the Chase yielded Mark Martin his third victory of the season on Sunday. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- In Mark Martin's mind, it's about the race not about the Chase.

Shortly after winning Sunday's LifeLock 400 at Michigan -- where the two cars in front of him ran out of fuel on the final lap -- Martin was asked how his third victory of the season affects his chances of making the Chase, after he moved up to eighth in the standings.

There are three months left before the Chase begins on Sept. 20, and Martin quickly pointed out the focus of the sport should be on individual races rather than constantly on the Chase.

"This whole sport has forgotten that it's about the race," Martin said. "I could do every race, and I went to every race for the race, not about a bunch of things you couldn't control, like flat tires, this and that -- just the race. I'm using that mental toughness that I was talking about to prevent worrying about scoring points, take away from the fun that I'm having.

"I wasn't going to let the points part of it be the disappointment. It was going to be a disappointment because we didn't reach our full potential today."

Spoken like a true racer.

When NASCAR decided to emphasize its playoff format with the Chase in 2004, it hoped to create a level of excitement and interest that would be similar to other professional team sports. The big difference, of course, is that those playoff formats include elimination rounds.

NASCAR got exactly what it wanted in 2004 before drivers and teams began to figure out how to best approach the Chase. That year, nearly half of the then 10-driver field was still in contention to win the title entering the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, before Kurt Busch prevailed. But since that season, the separation between the eventual champion and the other contenders seems to happen earlier and earlier each year . Meanwhile, the media hype of the Chase has made every race of the season (other than the premier event -- the Daytona 500), just another race.

To a 50-year-old driver such as Martin, it's always been about the individual race first. He's proud of being old school. He doesn't do burn-outs or doughnuts after winning a race; he doesn't park his car in front of the main grandstand and take a bow. He simply drives to victory lane with the satisfaction that comes with winning.

Martin does admit, however, that he wants to make the Chase. At the same time, he believes his focus should be on doing the best he can in every race, not focusing on points.

"Well, it will be an incredible honor to me to be in that Chase -- that's a big deal," Martin said. "Everybody should know that, for every reason, but for me personally, at a stage when I might have written myself off, or the competition might have written me off, to be able to do that is pretty cool. All you have to do is have 10 great races [in the Chase]. You don't have to be the strongest team or the fastest or anything else. You just have to have the 10 best races to pull it off."

And that's the way it should be. If more drivers thought about going out to win races rather than protecting their points it might add a little more spark to the NASCAR season.

At least Sunday's race at Michigan provided plenty of drama, because, with so many drivers gambling on fuel mileage, the outcome wasn't clear until Martin coasted across the start/finish line with the checkered flag waving.

This came after Jimmie Johnson took the lead when he passed Greg Biffle with six laps to go, but Johnson ran out of fuel as the white flag was waving to signal the final lap of the race. Biffle lost the lead when he ran out of fuel coming off the second turn on the last lap. Martin passed him for the lead in the third turn, but as Martin exited the fourth turn, he also ran out of fuel. Fortunately, he coasted to the checkered flag.

Martin did what he had to do to win the race. And if he continues to prove it's 'Nifty to be 50,' race victories will lead him into the Chase.

"The thing that pleases me more than the trophies is just that we've been fast," Martin said. "That's really important. When you're not fast, there's not a whole lot you can do. But when you are fast, if you keep doing that every week, sooner or later you get great results."