In 2001, Roush Racing had two drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series, Mark Martin and Kurt Busch. However, both of them were winless the entire season. With two drivers failing to claim a victory, the warning bell was ringing at Jack Roush’s team. Despite having an experienced driver, an experienced crew chief, and a young blood, they failed to make amends.

Amidst this, the team and the drivers tried a move that went on to change their course in the future, and this was when Martin and Busch swapped their teams. This changed the destiny of the drivers and made them what they are today. Recently, Mark Martin dived in deeper to explain what really happened.

Team swap with Mark Martin changed Kurt Busch’s racing life

In 2001, Mark Martin was a renowned name on the grid. However, he failed to make it count when it came to races as he went winless the entire season. Even though he was teaming up with the experienced crew chief Jimmy Fenning, their partnership did not bear fruit.

On the other hand, his team, Roush Racing, brought in Kurt Busch, a young blood to the team. Despite the infusion, both drivers remained without a victory throughout the 2001 season. As things started to go out of hand, Martin took the initiative of changing their fate.

“So, Jack (co-owner of Roush Racing) and I, sort of made the executive call to swap teams,” Martin revealed in the Kenny Wallace Media podcast. “Jimmy and I worked together in one. I won two-thirds of my Cup wins, under Jimmy Fenning. It’s a huge one. ASA Championship, all the way back to 1985. But things weren’t working.”

As the driver duo could not extract the desired performance and results, they decided to make an instrumental change. Speaking about this, Martin said, “Sometimes you gotta make a change, it wasn’t because Jimmy and I wasn’t getting along, but Jimmy and I weren’t getting it done at this time.”

Martin’s words are clear. It wasn’t their partnership, but the outcome. They decided to shake things up to try something new.

“So, it would be a great swap to put a veteran like Jimmy with Kurt because Kurt was with Ben Leslie, who was pretty much a rookie crew chief, cut to crew chief himself. And most of Kurt’s team were rookie guys as well,” he further added.

Following this, Martin unraveled how Roush Racing swapped his crew chief and the entire team with Kurt Busch. This was done to give Busch, who was an inexperienced driver at the time, an opportunity to race with experienced crew chief Jimmy Fenning. On the other hand, Martin raced with Busch’s former crew chief, Ben Leslie.

Speaking about this, here’s what he further added, “So, my team, they changed the colors of cars. I got Kurt’s car, Kurt’s got my car. Kurt’s got Jimmy and my guys, and I got all those young guys.”

That year (2002), Martin won the Coca-Cola 600 and was a championship contender throughout the season. Busch, on the other hand, claimed his first-ever Cup win at Bristol. Following this, he went on to win three more races at Martinsville, Atlanta, and Homestead.

Kurt Busch continued his rise to the top in 2003. A year later in 2004, the very next year, he claimed his first ever Championship by beating Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

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Mark Martin shared his thoughts about Greg Biffle’s tragic crash

Mark Martin poured out his feelings about Greg Biffle after the latter succumbed to a tragic death following his plane crash at Statesville Regional Airport. Taking to his official social media, Martin, who is also an airplane pilot, wrote:

“As a Citation pilot for 20 years and a product of around 75 days of @FlightSafetyInt training and over 3000 hours of flight time in the aircraft I have deep knowledge of these aircraft and performance. The more I learn about Biffle’s crash the more disturbing it is to me.”

Interestingly, Mark Martin has experience flying Citation private jets. One should know that the plane that crashed at the airport was a Citation model, specifically the Cessna C550 Citation II.

“Every day I get sicker and sicker about this tragedy,” he added.

Recently, the 911 calls of the witnesses who saw this tragedy have been released. Calls have been made by people in the airport authority and those playing on the golf course next to the airport. All of this just adds to the horrible picture that the crash has left the people with.