Concord, N.C. — Dan Davis, director, Ford Racing said Friday that he was shocked by Mark Martin's decision to leave Roush Racing to run a partial NASCAR Nextel Cup schedule with another team next year.
That's because Davis and Martin had been working together virtually all year to make sure Martin would have a championship-caliber Ford F-150 to race in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in 2007, plans that are in grave doubt now that Martin will be joining a different team and manufacturer next season.
"The expectation we had for Mark was a full-time Truck program next year," Davis said Friday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. "That's what Mark and I talked about for eight months—a full-time Truck program, let's go win a Truck championship. We had purchase orders within Ford that had been written to ship [parts and equipment] to Roush. We totally negotiated the entire deal. Done, delivered, ready to go, with purchase orders, contracts to that effect.
"My expectation with Mark was to run a full time Truck program, win a championship," Davis continued. "We practiced this year.One of Mark's concerns that he expressed to me early in the year was, 'I'm not going to get into a Truck program to drive around.' And to his credit, he chewed on my ear about, 'The truck has to be competitive. I have to be able to get in the truck and know I can win.'"
According to Davis, Ford developed a new aero package and chassis for the NCTS entry, plus ramped up the horsepower under the hood, all of which has allowed Martin to amass five victories this season in just 10 starts.
"There was a fair amount of work that went into the Truck program, anticipating that Mark was going to get in next year and run for a championship," Davis said. "I feel like over the last six months, we've been practicing with Mark to go win the championship. I feel like we delivered on our end of the deal—and I'm not saying Mark didn't, because he did what he needed to do. But I'm just saying that from a manufacturer's standpoint, what he was looking for from us was to step into a competitive situation."
Davis said a slim chance exists that Martin could still drive Roush's NCTS entry in 2007.
"He asked me that and I said, 'Mark, man, wow. You've sort of...my life at Ford headquarters is not real good right now because of your little deal here, so you're asking me something that's real hard,'" Davis said.
"I didn't give him an answer yet and we haven't actually decided what to do yet. Maybe we need to get over the initial hurt of this whole thing and try to look at it in hard, cold business terms and that's what I would really like to do and be unemotional about it. Hopefully as a team at Ford, we'll sit down and try to figure out what to do."
