Rookie driver learning the ropes

Regan Smith is learning from veteran and teammate Mark Martin.

LONG POND, Pa. (AP) — Regan Smith sat next to Mark Martin at a drivers meeting like a wide-eyed kid hoping to get an autograph from his idol. He smiled and leaned close to listen to what Martin had to say.

Smith has quite a teacher in his rookie year on the Sprint Cup circuit.

As a kid growing up near Syracuse, N.Y., he would watch Martin and Dale Earnhardt win races on television. Now, the 24-year-old is teammates with Martin and working for the team named after the late “Intimidator.”

“I’ve got the best of both worlds here,” Smith said this week.

He’s also got a long way to go to match the accomplishments of Martin and Earnhardt.

Smith is 31st in the points standings, tops for a rookie entering this weekend’s race at Michigan but about 500 points behind the 12th-place cutoff for the championship chase. His best finish was 14th at Martinsville in April.

There have been the normal challenges a rookie faces. Smith’s No. 01 Chevy doesn’t have full-time sponsorship, and two weeks ago a new crew chief, Dan Stillman, took over, as the team hoped to smooth out his ride.

While winning is always a goal, Smith would be satisfied with making small steps forward: finishing in the top 20 each week, then shooting for consistent top-15 finishes and so forth.

“The main thing is to keep making progress,” he said. “Hopefully, by the end of the year, we get a couple of top-5s, maybe four or five top-10s.”

By that account, the Pocono 500 last week may have been a disappointment with a 28th-place finish, though he thinks the team is on the right track with Stillman. Smith was fifth when the green flag came out on a restart with 18 laps to go, but got shuffled out of line to get sent to the back.

“I wouldn’t say we’re happy by any means,” Smith said. “But definitely we’ve been picking our performance up.”

One bright spot for Smith during the grueling weekend in the Pennsylvania mountains was qualifying a career-best fourth, good enough to start alongside his teammate, Martin. He said Martin has helped him “more than anybody there could be in racing has helped me out.”

Martin sounded like a proud father at Pocono.

“Awesome, man! You did good,” he told Smith before extending a hearty handshake as the two passed each other between news conferences after qualifying.

It was quite a compliment from man who ran his first NASCAR race in 1981 — two years before Smith was born. Martin’s 35 career Sprint Cup victories is fourth among active drivers and 17th all-time.