Mark Martin doesn't know what to make of retirement just yet.

He's enjoying himself well enough. But it's different, these slow-rolling seconds into these slower-rolling minutes and hours. It's understandable; fundamental, even. This is a man who lived at 150 mph for 80 percent of his life.

Mark Martin remained one of the most popular drivers in the NASCAR garage until his retirement in 2013. Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

For 35 years every path Martin sought led to the same destination: Victory Lane at the next racetrack. For that entire span of time, the unyielding need to achieve racing excellence obsessively consumed him. And for a great portion of that time, the obsession with winning a championship was, in fact, all-consuming.

"I let it consume too much of me," Martin told ESPN.com. "But that's what it took at the time to be as successful as I was. I'll bet you I could have been just as successful and not as consumed by it. But that's not my nature."

He never did it. Yes, Mark Martin made it to the pinnacle of American auto racing, and he stayed at the pinnacle. For years he was a perennial fixture at or near the peak of the peak.

But he never won the championship. That void can haunt even the greatest of athletes. NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley calls it the "S--- List" -- this group of elite Hall of Fame athletes who failed to win a ring.

Some will tell you Martin is the greatest NASCAR driver of all time without a ring.

Looking back now, he doesn't care about any of that.

But in the moment it was mostly all he cared about.

"As my career was coming to an end, I let more and more pressure build to get a championship -- which at the end of the day I don't think matters," Martin said. "But at the time I listened to everyone else, and I let them build that up in my head that it was so important to have that [Cup championship] on my list of successes.

"I really let that take its toll on me. And man, did it take its toll on me. It robbed me of a lot of joy throughout the years, especially the last several years I drove the [No.] 6 car."

Those voices only got louder until Martin scaled back to a limited schedule in 2007. Suddenly, just then, he had keen perspective.

The race went on whether he was there or not. And he realized it wasn't about the championship for him. It was about where his next chosen path led.

"Even when I got in the 5 [car] I wasn't uptight about it," Martin said. "I wasn't really racing for a championship anyway. Me, personally, I just wanted to win one more race, and we stuck around and won five races [in 2009]. I didn't get too uptight about that one. But the last several years in that 6 car, I was robbed of joy."

Mark Martin celebrated his fifth Sprint Cup victory of 2009 -- and the 40th and final of his career in NASCAR's premier series -- in the fall race at New Hampshire. Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR

He ran full time again in 2010 and 2011, and returned to limited action in 2012 and 2013. And then, like so many before him, the motor fell silent and he was left to wonder, what now?

For that, the 55-year-old Martin is still searching.

He spends more time with his wife, Arlene, which he greatly enjoys. He turns wrenches on his boats. He's taken his family on a couple of trips -- one, a weeklong camping outing to the mountains of North Carolina, and another to Eureka Springs in his home state of Arkansas. He spends minimal time in an advisory role with Roush Fenway Racing, offering insight to young drivers and crew chiefs when asked.

He works out harder than ever. He has little energy for things that don't inspire him. He has "unlimited" energy for what is inspiring. He hasn't yet located that new source of passion. He's just trying to redefine normal.

"I'm trying to find my niche and my passion," Martin said. "I've been OCD my entire life, and to drop that is not realistic. It's what I want to do -- I want to drop that - but I don't know that that's completely realistic.

"So I'm bumping along here trying to find my niche and find where my passion and my obsessive nature could take me next. I haven't really found that yet. In some ways I wish I'd have started this adventure sooner, because then maybe I'd have figured it out by now."

Not that he misses NASCAR. Because he doesn't. His identity as a driver was long gone. He just wants to be a regular guy.

"I definitely wouldn't go back," he said.

If he missed being at the racetrack he'd be at the racetrack, doing something or other. If he wanted to be at the racetrack he'd figure out a reason to go. But he doesn't want to go.

He is still quite engaged in the sport, watches most qualifying sessions and most of the races. He loves the knockout-qualifying format and really loves the knockout Chase system.

But he wants no part of either.

Martin misses two things about NASCAR: the people and the top of the scoring pylon.

"For right now, driving a race car is a phase of my life that is behind me, and I don't miss that, either," Martin said. "I try not to let myself think about what it was like to look up at the scoreboard and see my car number on the top of it. That feeling will never be again. That's what's painful for me. Not driving a race car. That's not painful at all.

"But the feeling I got from putting it out front, and being on top of that scoreboard when the working relationship was really, really good between my crew chief, my crew and I, that's the part that is probably irreplaceable. And you know, I don't have answers for that as of now. That's something I'm moving forward and living through."