WINSTON CUP A season of setbacks plagues Marlin's comeback

He has yet to make it to Victory Lane and is 16th in the standings.
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) -- Sterling Marlin's luck ran out almost a year ago, when a broken vertebra snapped his shot at his first Winston Cup title.
Since then it's been a string of blown motors, broken parts, tire troubles and bad timing that have prevented Marlin from repeating his near-dream season.
A year ago, he led the series points standings for 25 consecutive weeks, only to miss the final seven races of the season after breaking a vertebra in two hard wrecks. At the time he was sidelined, he had two wins and 14 top-10 finishes.
Winless
Fast-forward to his comeback year, and Marlin has yet to make it to Victory Lane. He doesn't have a top-five finish and has cracked the top 10 nine times. He's 16th in the Winston Cup standings.
"I don't think its good luck or bad luck, a lot of it is just circumstance and getting caught up in stuff," he said. "Last year, we didn't wreck but two or three times ... but we stayed out of trouble for the most part.
"This year, we've had all kinds of trouble."
It started at the season opener when Marlin was black-flagged for driving below the yellow line at Daytona. Even though Marlin and many of his competitors thought the penalty was unjust, it set the tone for a series of mishaps for the No. 40 Dodge.
A water pump broke at Rockingham, resulting in a 40th-place finish. He finished eighth the next week in Las Vegas despite an accident with Jimmie Johnson in the final turn.
Two weeks later at Darlington, where he was back as the defending race winner, another accident with Johnson sent him home in 39th.
There have been other mishaps and broken parts along the way -- including two weeks ago in Watkins Glen, when engine problems knocked him out on the first lap -- and a little driver error. Almost certain victory was lost at Michigan when he missed a shift on a restart.
All-out effort
But if there's one thing his Chip Ganassi Racing team is sure of, it's that the 46-year-old Tennessean is driving as hard as he did last year.
"I think Sterling is the exact same driver he was last year," crew chief Lee McCall said. "No one should doubt that after last week."
Marlin did drive his wheels off after a pre-race motor change moved him back to the 43rd starting spot. He sliced his way to the front of the field, all the way to fifth.
But bad luck struck again: The race was decided on fuel mileage and Marlin's Dodge can't stretch gas as long as some of the others. A late pit stop for fuel led to a 19th-place finish.
"To work your guts out all day, and then you have nothing to show for it at the end, it makes you want to throw up," Marlin said.
It's been bad enough to demoralize the entire team, which probably didn't think things could ever be as bad as they were that tearful day last October when informed that Marlin was done for the year.
"Sometimes it's hard to keep the guys up because we led the points 25 weeks last year and had won two races by now and built up a ton of momentum," McCall said. "But you've got to keep everybody focused and motivated, because everybody is here to win races -- not to sit around and dwell on what has happened."
So they're now looking forward to a typically strong stretch of the season for Marlin. He heads to his home track in Bristol, Tenn., this weekend, then it's on to Darlington and Richmond, where he's always strong.