NASCAR This Morning Q&A: Martin puts family first; Bootie's back in '06

by SPEED Channel,


Updated: October 30, 2005, 11:22 PM EST

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NASCAR This Morning — your prerace show before every Nextel Cup race on SPEED Channel — talked with several guests at Atlanta Motor Speedway, including Mark Martin and crew chief Bootie Barker. Tune in to SPEED next Sunday at 11 a.m. ET before the race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Mark Martin's son Matt and wife Arlene accompanied him at his "Salute To You" announcement in October 2004 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. (Sherryl Creekmore/NASCAR)
Kenny Wallace: Was there anything that you had to cancel because, all of the sudden, you had to help Jack Roush out? Did you have to go to your family? Did you have to go to anybody and go, 'Hey, look, got to cancel that because I'm going to run another year of Cup'?

Mark Martin: Well, you know, I made several commitments going into this thing. And one of the commitments was Kenny that my family was going to come first in 2006. So when this came up...

Kenny Wallace: (laugh) Here we go!

Mark Martin: So when this came up, I sent Jack Roush to (wife) Arlene and (son) Matt because it wasn't going to be my decision without them. So my way of putting them first was to give them the opportunity to say no.

Kenny Wallace: That's a great story.

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Mark Martin: So they're all behind me 100 percent. We're going to go out here and we're going to do battle one more time as hard as we can go. You know, I don't have any idea how we're going to find the strength and the energy to put forth an effort like we have in 2005, but we will. I'm sure of fit.

Bootie's back in the 0

Bob Dillner: Bootie Barker is the crew chief for the 0 car, and I want to ask you, Bootie, from a crew chief's standpoint, why all of these changes so far that we're seeing these past couple of weeks?

Bootie Barker: Excellent question as far as why has the levee broke now? It all starts, just to let everybody know, these days I think around Indy. Indy is when you start, believe it or now, is when the ball starts rolling. But apparently everybody's waited as long as they felt they could with their sponsors. I think deals with sponsors now being signed so everything falls into place as far as 'OK, this sponsor's going to come back.' And you try to get, 'Well, can we get this driver?' And people are working the whole time since Indy until this point, and I think this is just the final... Finally it comes to a head now, and it's just once one domino falls, the rest do as well.

Bob Dillner: Let's talk about some other dominoes that could happen here. Rumor this week, we all know that Mike Bliss is no longer with the 0 car next year. Jeff Green coming in here. The rumors going on this week about maybe a crew chief change over here. You no longer being crew chief. Whats' the status over here?

Bootie Barker: (laugh) Well, hey, I guess it's logical that rumor. Harold (Holly) and Jeff were together and did real well. But Harold and I are great friends and no animosity between us. I think what it was was just somebody needed a story, and they just put one out there because I'm signed. I've got a multi-year deal, and Gene Haas and the rest of the Best Buy car is happy with me. That could change. Everything changes in this sport, but as of right now, everything is good.

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