Favorite Car Syndrome is a good affliction

Mark Martin is my pick to win this weekend in Kansas.

I’m picking him not because he has the most wins this season, and not because he currently leads the championship standings. Nope, I’m picking Mark because he will be racing Chassis No. 5-527.

Ever since teams began building multiple chassis, drivers have been afflicted with “Favorite Car Syndrome.” I had a favorite car when I came into the Cup Series. It was Chassis No. 17, and that car ran so well there were times we would race it on back-to-back weeks.

Years later, I discovered another favorite chassis while racing with Cal Wells. Ironically, it was Chassis No. 32 (which happened to be the number on the side of my car). It was originally declared a short-track car, but I became so comfortable in 32 that we raced it at almost all disciplines of tracks.

Thirty-two was my favorite before we won Darlington with it in 2003, and I revered it so much we turned down the opportunity to archive it a few days after the closest finish in the history of Sprint Cup Series. Instead, I raced it several more times, and today it sits in the garage at my office.

There are a lot of opinions about what makes two chassis built in the same shop by the same people potentially different from each other. Conclusions range from the sequence in which the metal is welded together to a simpler theory of it being the seat mounted to perfection.

It could be any of those things or none of them, but the bottom line is that when a driver performs better than normal and it happens in the same car often enough, it’s because the driver is comfortable and confident. Regardless of the reason, the driver has bought into the idea that this car is special and he arrives at the track with that advantage.

Oftentimes, car owners are frustrated with the idea of singling out a favorite car, which makes perfect sense. After all, they have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment, software and people who not only focus on building a superior piece, but also duplicating that as often as possible. Homogenizing your fleet of cars has been the pursuit of car owners in NASCAR for as long as I can remember.

Some in the sport dismiss the favorite-car theory, and some simply resist it, claiming that favoring one chassis over the six or eight others creates more problems than it solves. I was told by members of several teams that this didn’t happen anymore, that cars are designated three or four weeks in advance to maintain order and organization. The reason for this is that the risk of mechanical failure is higher if crews do not have time to adequately service a car between two races separated by only a few days.

I talked with Mark after his win at Chicagoland, where he led 195 of 267 laps, and asked if they planned to put this dominant car on jack stands to preserve it for Kansas – the track most similar to Chicagoland and, of course, the third race in the Chase. Mark laughed and suggested they needed the car to help them make the Chase. And it did help them as Mark raced Chassis No. 5-527 to a fifth-place finish four weeks ago at Atlanta.

Now they are rolling it back out at Kansas, and I think that’s worth its weight in gold. If he gets the same result there as he did at Chicagoland, then I suspect the team will try to use it again, possibly at Charlotte or Texas.

Mark may not designate Chassis No. 5-527 as his favorite car, the way I insisted on running Chassis No. 32 as often as possible. I will, however, offer this: If the championship comes down to the final race with Mark Martin having a solid shot at winning the title, I bet I know which car they take to Homestead-Miami Speedway.