The first time I tried to talk to Mark Martin, it went poorly. We were in the garage at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, and Mark was standing behind a race car. I’d go one way, and he’d go the other. Back and forth we went. When I made a last-ditch effort to reach him, he cut across the garage and ran to his trailer. I settled for a chat with Alan Kulwicki. Sigh.

But Mark Martin suddenly changed. The rumor was that Ford Motor Company held an offseason seminar in 1989 to teach drivers how to deal with the media. Apparently, it worked.

The next time I saw Mark, in 1990, NASCAR had just docked him something like 40 points and $40,000 for an illegal engine part after a win. A pretty PR lady was questioning Martin for a Q&A, and I stopped by to listen. When they finished, I asked Mark if he’d miss the points or the money the most. He said he didn’t want to say something wrong and hurt his relationship with NASCAR. I persisted, reminding him that NASCAR officials didn’t read the Charleston (S.C.) News and Courier. Besides, I said, they wouldn’t mind him answering that question.

Mark was wonderfully patient with me. Finally, he said he could make up the money, but he couldn’t make up the points. In the end, he lost the season championship to Dale Earnhardt by 26 points. If he’d had those 40 points, Earnhardt would have wound up a six-time champion.

Then the Fourth of July weekend that year in Daytona Beach, I asked Mark if he could talk about a story I was doing for Winston Cup Scene. He sat on a tire, and I sat on the ground, and we talked for 20 minutes in the sweltering heat.

Martin’s been a pleasure to work with. You may recall the Busch race in 1994 when Mark was leading under caution, and he went to pit road a lap early. That gave David Green his only victory of the season and helped Green win the ’94 Busch title. A few years later, I asked this question: "What was the dumbest thing you ever did?" Mark seemed shocked that I’d ask that, but he talked frankly about the race when he pitted early. Almost ironically, he said it wasn’t the dumbest thing he ever did. It’s just the most publicized dumb thing he did.

It’s funny; Mark may be the most pessimistic great athlete I’ve met. He’d never pull a Joe Namath and guarantee a victory; he always has said he didn’t want to set a goal and have his heart broken. That may be so, but Mark's had plenty of successes. Consider:

But there’s more to a driver than winning races.

Other drivers say he’s the cleanest driver they’ve raced against. Since 1990, Martin’s been a pleasure to work with, and fans love him.

One year, I was at a race, and a bunch of fans were ringed around the No. 6 team’s trailer. Martin suddenly stepped out of the trailer, and he cringed at the crowd. You could see that he wanted to say "no" to autograph requests; he almost did. Then he calmed down. You could see that he’d made a decision.

He’d sign an autograph, shake a hand and thank the fan. He’d sign a T-shirt, shake a hand and thank that fan, too. One by one, he must have gone through 30 fans before he had to go to qualifying.

Mark’s also the most famous driver for weight lifting, and it’s given him a physical reputation that goes beyond his 5-foot-6, 145-pound frame. One year, some of us racing writers were at Darlington Raceway for testing, and Bobby Hamilton was there. We were talking about how racing could be improved, and I asked Bobby if racing needs Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin to fight in turn three at Daytona, as the Allisons fought Cale Yarborough in the 1979 Daytona 500.

The glib Hamilton answered, "Mark Martin may be an itty-bitty guy, but I wouldn’t want to fight him, in turn three or anywhere else!"

Now that the 46-year-old Mark is retiring after the 2005 season, dubbed his "Salute to You" Tour, we can ask: How does he stack up with the all-time greats? I once was doing a magazine story on which current Cup drivers were likely Hall of Famers, and Martin wondered if he was good enough to be a Hall of Famer.

"I don’t know how I’d stack up against David Pearson and Bobby Allison and those guys," he said. "I don't know if I'm a Hall of Famer."

Relax, Mark. There's nothing itty-bitty about you. You battled Earnhardt pretty much to a standstill, and you’d stack up well against any driver … any place, any era.

Especially in a brawl in turn three.

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