Good to go

Fully recovered, Marlin looking to pick up where he left off

Sterling Marlin led the 2002 points race for 25 weeks before suffering a season-ending neck injury. AP

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- With his fender shoved in against his tire and his chances of winning the Daytona 500 at stake, Sterling Marlin climbed out of his car a year ago and tried to fix it himself.

He knows now that's not allowed, but it doesn't matter.

Racing again after missing the final seven events last year with a fractured vertebra, there's not a whole lot that can get Marlin out of the car again.

"We don't kid Sterling too much about getting out of the car to fix the fender anymore," crew chief Lee McCall said. "It was funny for a while, but after he got hurt and couldn't drive anymore, we stopped talking about stuff like that."

Last year was a season of near misses for Marlin.

He was in prime position for his third Daytona 500 victory, leading late in the race, only to make contact with Jeff Gordon and crumple the fender on his No. 40 Dodge. The sheet metal certainly would have blown out his tire if not pulled back, so Marlin jumped out of the car during a red-flag stop to repair it.

NASCAR penalized him for playing mechanic and what seemed like certain victory was gone.

He always had a good laugh over it, even though fans at first thought he had foolishly given the race away.

"What was NASCAR going to do? Put you in jail? We knew we were going to have to pit anyway, so we thought we'd just try to call their bluff and get out there and try to pull it off and get back in the car," he said.

Marlin rebounded the next two weeks, finishing second at Rockingham and winning in Las Vegas to emerge as the top driver in the series. He led the points for 25 consecutive weeks, and after years and years of driving for midlevel teams, the 45-year-old Marlin was making a run at his first Winston Cup title.

One hard hit took it all away.

When he crashed his car into the wall at Kansas on Sept. 29, he cracked a vertebra in his neck. Even tough it didn't hurt -- he was out working on his Tennessee farm the very next day -- X-rays showed the break and doctors ended his season.

It was a crushing blow for his Chip Ganassi Racing crew, which had worked so hard to put the team on the cusp of a championship in less than two years.

Only Marlin's "aw-shucks" attitude and good nature kept them going. In a time when the driver spends little time at the shop and sees the crew mostly at the race track, Marlin remains true to old-school days of being part of the gang.

The crew worked hard on the cars, he worked hard on healing and no one dwelled on the misfortune of last season.

"If you can't have a good time, you might as well stay home," he said. "I feel real good, the guys are glad to be back, they've got a lot of good cars built up and we're ready to make another run it."

Now the No. 40 Dodge is back at Daytona with its pilot back behind the wheel.

His car has been strong all week -- he was ninth fastest in the first qualifying session and the car was stout in drafting practices -- and he's considered one of the dark horses to win the event on Sunday.

"I think we're showing that we picked up where we left off in Kansas," team manager Tony Glover said. "We worked hard all winter to make sure Sterling can come right back and make another run at this."

There's no denying this is the best team Marlin has ever been with, and he's determined to get the most out of it. In his first 18 years of full-time Winston Cup racing, he rarely sniffed the Top 10 in points.

He didn't win his first race until 1994 and had just six victories when Chip Ganassi bought into Felix Sabates' team and kept Marlin on as the driver.

Marlin has won four races since then, tied his career-best finish of third in the standings last season and proved he was one of the best in 2002.

"It took me a long time to get the best equipment I've ever had to get in a drive," he said. "When I came along there were five to eight good rides and you had 20 drivers looking for cars. It just took so long to get a good ride."

So Marlin has no intention of getting out of it again any time soon. Retirement is not in his vocabulary and injuries are in the past.

"I was bored to death last year when I had to sit out," he said. "I just didn't know what to do with myself. I am not tired of racing and I am not even thinking about quitting. I am having too good of a time."

 

Related information

Stories

B. Duane Cross: Dodge looking for more speed, victories

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video