by Larry McReynolds

Mark Martin's announcement about his future last week made me reflect on the beginning of his career as a driver and the beginning of my career as a crew chief.

In 1982, I worked for Rogers Racing until it shut its doors at the end of May, and at about the same time, Martin lost his crew chief. Bob Rogers held an auction in Greenville, S.C., and Mark and his mother, Jackie, came to the auction, bought some stuff and asked me what I was going to do.

I really didn't have any business even being a crew chief. I had been in Winston Cup racing less than two years. Martin knew about me, and we raced against each other in late model and all-pro type cars. They asked me if I was interested in coming to Charlotte and working with Mark's team.

He was trying to race with very limited sponsorship from Apache Stove. The final race of the 1982 season was in Riverside, Calif. He was certainly trying to win rookie of the year and every race he possibly could, but we were basically out of money. Martin's mother was a big part of running that race team, and I can remember going to her a couple of weeks before Riverside and saying, "Jackie, wouldn't it make more sense to try to rent Mark a ride for Riverside rather than trying to take your equipment out there?" She looked at me and said, "Look, we started this deal, and yeah, we're going away at the end of the year, but we are going down swinging. We are going to run that last race as we have run all the rest of these races — on our own."

I suggested that we should as thrifty as possible so we loaded up the truck, and Mark's dad drove it out there. I can remember six of us in a Suburban, including Mark, driving to Riverside. Even though we had a flat tire under green, it was a road course so we still finished fifth, and it was great to end the season on a good note with a top-five finish.

When Martin and those veterans started, they were with race teams that were hanging by a thread. Today's rookies have an exceptional amount of talent, but they are starting out in Penske cars, Hendrick cars and Roush cars. You can't compare today's teams to Martin's 1982 team. It's not even remotely fair to the older guys because there weren't that many major rides back then. It's like comparing potatoes to apples.

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Not to sell myself short, but Martin didn't need a top-notch crew chief because he knew what he wanted out of his car. He knew springs, shocks and sway bars. Wallace, Martin and DW know their race cars. Ryan Newman is awfully smart and sharp about his car, and Kurt Busch seems to be on top of it. But I don't know if a lot of the young guys would know a lot about their race cars. That's another big difference between most of the old guard and the new drivers.

In the new regime's defense, there are a lot more demands on drivers now than there were in 1982. Kasey Kahne probably does more personal appearances and autograph sessions in one month than Martin and his comtemporaries had to do in their whole rookie season.

It's going to be very different without those veterans. I'm sure Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett won't be far behind. And the new generation wil have awfully big shoes to fill.

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FOX race analyst Larry McReynolds has more than 25 years of NASCAR experience as a mechanic, crew chief and broadcaster. He and his fellow Crew Chief Club members take you behind the wall at www.crewchiefclub.com.

"Larry McReynolds: The Big Picture" is on bookstore shelves now, or you may order your own autographed copy from www.DWStore.com.