NASCAR legend Mark Martin has admitted that he felt that he had torpedoed his standing in the sport after first addressing the playoff committee.

Five-time Cup Series runner-up Martin, one of the sport's greatest drivers and advocates, had long been pushing for a return to the 36-race points format – but when NASCAR announced this week that it will be going back to a ten-race Chase format similar to the 2004-13 era, he admitted that he never expected the series' compromise to be nearly as close to his demands.

Martin's influence on the process was so significant that he was one of the six figures on stage at Monday's press conference announcing the shift, and he admitted later that day that things were 'pretty ugly' the first time he spoke his mind.

The 67-year-old appeared to have been through the emotional wringer for his beliefs about the sport when he admitted that he felt like he had 'embarrassed himself' when he spoke up in that first meeting, only for the tide of opinion to sway in his direction as the process went on.

Mark Martin: I felt like I embarrassed myself

Speaking to the media on Monday, Martin said: "I was 50 per cent embarrassed, and 50 per cent concerned that I has tarnished the respect the industry had for me. It was pretty ugly. You could hear a pin drop after that first...I was the first one to speak.

"I just laid it out there, like you would your buddy. Because they need that. See, everyone inside this circle, they can't see outside that circle. That circle encompasses the race fans at the race track, but there's millions of race fans, not 50,000 or 100,000, there's millions, and I felt like I was in touch with those fans.

"Everywhere I went, every short track I went, all the interactions I had pointed toward 'lay off the playoffs'. So, I decided that my voice could be louder than theirs. After that, I got invited to be on the committee. After the first meeting, Tim Clarke was the one who invited me to be on it, I text him and I said 'well, I guess that's the last time I'll ever be invited to be on a committee'. That's how bad I felt.

"I really felt like I embarrassed myself. Then the second meeting we had, there still was no hope for anything less than a playoff. ... We came a long way. It was a lot harder than people understand."

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