By Bob Markus

The sweet bird of youth has revisited Mark Martin's nest and it appears to be ready to stay a spell. At the so-called golden age of 50 Martin is leading after the first of 10 races that will decide NASCAR's Sprint Cup championship. His victory Sunday in Loudon, N.H., was the 40th in his career, but he has never won either a series championship or a Daytona 500. Every geezer, including this one, has to be rooting for Martin, who came out of semi-retirement to race for Rick Hendrick on a fulltime basis this season. Already signed through 2010, Martin recently added a third year to his contract, meaning he should still be racing at 52.

The longtime lead driver for Jack Rousch racing, Martin announced his retirement after the 2005 season. But when Rousch couldn't find a suitable replacement, Martin agreed to race the full series in 2006. He ran parttime the last two seasons before joining the powerful Hendrick team, which already included Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, with seven Cup titles between them, and the popular but apparently over-rated Dale Earnhardt Jr. My most abiding memory of Martin came not at a race track, although I did once have a one-on-one with him in his trailer, but at a theater in New York.

Martin was in the Big Apple to get his slice of the Winston Cup (as it was called then) pie. It was NASCAR's version of the Oscars, although everyone already knew who the winners were. The top ten drivers and their crews were invited to New York to honor the champion and receive their own accolades. Being No. 10 in most sports is synonymous with "loser," but in NASCAR it's a big deal. And Martin, although never the top banana, was one of the bunch on a regular basis. At that time the event was held each December in the Waldorf-Astoria and as the auto racing writer for The Chicago Tribune I went to several of them. On this occasion my wife was with me and Chip Williams, then the p.r. director for Winston Cup, asked me if we would like to go to dinner and the theater with Mark Martin. I don't remember much about the dinner or the show we saw, but I do remember looking at Mark halfway through the production and seeing that he was fast asleep. It didn't surprise me too much, because the play was "The Secret Garden," a musical based on the once popular, but long forgotten children's novel, and I had trouble staying awake myself. It was Mark's first Broadway show and I'd be very surprised if it wasn't his last. Martin is a down home type of guy from Arkansas and he's all business. Long before most drivers were into physical fitness, Martin was an avid workout proponent, which could account for his long career.

Martin is just one of four drivers to win a Cup race after reaching age 50. The other three are Bobby Allison, Morgan Shepherd, and Harry Gant, who did it eight times. Four of those came in succession in September of 1991 and although he was not the champion, Gant was the most sought after interviewee at that year's banquet. Gant was the ultimate late bloomer. He not only was the oldest driver ever to win a Cup race for the first time (he was 42 when he won at Martinsville), but the oldest ever to win a Cup race, period,when he won for the last time at Michigan as a 52-year-old.

Shepherd , who was 41 before he won his first Cup race, was mostly a back marker during a long career that reached its peak when he ran for the legendry Wood Brothers from 1992 to 1995. It was sometime during that period that I talked to him and found out that, among other interesting tidbits, he was closely related to the infamous Tom Dooley of story and song--and that he was illiterate, couldn't read or write. Shepherd's Winston Cup career died a lingering death, but he's still racing at age 67. He ran his own truck racing team for awhile, but was so strapped for money that he actually was his own pit crew at times, climbing out of the truck to change tires and refuel before climbing back in and soldiering on. As long as he pitted under the yellow that wasn't too damaging--at least he didn't lose a lap, but green flag stops were another story. More recently he's run a one-car team in the Nationwide series, NASCAR's version of Triple A baseball. But once again money problems have loomed and he may not be able to finish out the season.

Bobbby Allison was a few months past his 50th birthday in 1988 when he won the Daytona 500 for the third time. His son Davey finished second and it was a spectacular day for the Allison family. It was Bobby's last victory. Later that year he was almost killed in a savage crash at Pocono and never raced again. I remember getting a phone call from Davey Allison's p.r. man several months later. He told me that Bobby for the first time was able and willing to talk about the crash and his recovery and that he could also get me hooked up with Davey. Was I interested? You bet. Davey told me of his feelings when he drove past the accident scene and saw how horrific it was, but Bobby couldn't remember much of anything about the wreck. I asked him how he now felt about the sport and he told me, "Racing's given me everything I have. Racing's good." A few years later his son Clifford was killed in a crash during practice at Michigan and a year after that Davey died in a helicopter crash en route to Talladega Speedway. It was on a Monday and I can tell you that with some assurance because I was just sitting down to dinner at the annual charity golf tournament with which I was involved when I got a phone call from the office. No dinner for me, that night.

In Formula One racing you're an old man at 30, but in other forms of racing it's not so rare to see a 50-year-old still driving competitively. A.J. Foyt ws 57 when he called it a career and Mario Andretti was 53 when he won for the last time in an Indy car. Paul Newman was still driving competitively well into his 70s. But for the ultimate in senior moments I think you have to look at Hershel McGriff, a legendary west coast driver who competed mostly in the Winston Cup West series. McGriff started racing when he was 17. That was 64 years ago. Now 81, McGriff this year entered the race at Portland, the same track on which he'd made his debut--and finished 13th. Mark Martin has some catching up to do.