Last Sunday’s red flag presented a huge dilemma for the U.S. Army race team as they had to get their driver in and out of his race car not once, but twice.“It’s just something we’re really only prepared to do one time — put him in the car before the race and then take him out when the race is over.” the Crew Supervisor In Charge of Moving Mark Martin (CSICMMM) told us.

NASCAR’s resident gerontologist Dr. Boog Detwiller explained: “In Mark Martin, what you’re really dealing with is a cross between one of them really wrinkly dogs and an extremely delicate antique.  It’s like handling a shar-pei with glass bones.  Getting him in and out of the car is a very painstaking process.”

The CSICMMM noted that the operation is made much more difficult by Martin himself.  “In addition to being so dang breakable, Mark is basically screaming the whole time we’re trying to move him.  You don’t see it on TV cause we always stand him up first, but that dude does not like being carried around.”

The combination of Martin’s tremendous age and fragility make him a valuable commodity, and not just to NASCAR owners.  “Just last month, we got an exciting call from the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  Turns out they weren’t interested in Mark’s car or gloves or anything — they wanted to display Mark Martin himself.  We told them it just wasn’t possible to ship Mark back and forth between the museum and the track, even on a partial schedule.  What if you break off one of his fingers or smash in his nose?  Not only would Mark Martin would be ruined, we would never be able to race him again,” said the CSICMMM.

Martin’s handlers have dealt with this concern before.

In a terrifying incident two years ago, grave robbers attempted to dig through the roof of an old #6 Ford Fusion in hopes of stealing any valuables or treasure Martin had been entombed with in his old car.  “It’s a NASCAR, t’ain’t no tomb, you dad-blamed theives!” was the very last thing those souls heard before being chased off by the CSICMMM.

The miscreants aren’t the only individuals to mistake Martin for a corpse. 

In 2007, Martin was the focus of a fierce bidding competition between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the magazine “Consumer Reports.”  Both wanted to acquire Martin for use in crash tests for compact cars.  “He was the most realistic crash test dummy we had ever seen… it would have truly been a breakthrough for science,” sighed veteran crash tester Werner von Bratwurst. 

For now the CSICMMM is relieved to have a few days to recover, as Martin is sitting out the race at Watkins Glen.  “All weekend, all I have to do is dust him off once in a while and open the occasional jar of baby food.  Compared to our normal routine, it’s heaven.”