DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Mark Martin couldn't keep the smile off his face yesterday afternoon in the Daytona International Speedway media center.

He sat next to Rick Hendrick, wearing a white polo with his future car number, 5, on the right chest. Martin threw his head back at one point, laughing loudly and overall enjoying the entire process.

It was an optimistic return to full-time racing for Martin, who will drive the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet for the entirety of the 2009 season and 26 races in 2010. It's the second (so far) return to full-time racing after his vow in 2005 to get out of the grind.

"I don't know how to explain it to you, and I have no apologies for not knowing what my whole life holds for me," Martin said when asked why he was back, again. "When you're pretty good at something, and it's been the focus of your life and the driving force of your life for 35 years, and you're still pretty good at it, you know, you probably don't want to quit. Till then, for me, until you are not still pretty good at it.

"I don't have anything else really, beyond my love of family. I really don't have anything else with that kind of passion that I have for racing, and I thought at the end of 2006 that I thought I was fine with couch time the rest of my life. But that was because I was in a frustrated fog of emotion of being wore out."

Martin originally held his "Salute To You" tour in 2005 for what he thought would be his last season with Roush Racing. However, he was asked to run one more year, in 2006, and he acquiesced. He's spent the past year and a half running part-time schedules for Ginn Racing and Dale Earnhardt Inc., coming close to victories time and again.

He said as good as this deal is -- a chance to join Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick -- it was not an option he would have taken in 2007. He needed the time away to recharge, and now he's back for one more shot at that elusive championship he has fallen short of so many times before.

"I want to win another race before I can't anymore and before that opportunity isn't there anymore," Martin said. "The motivation to come due this deal was largely based on that I want to drive something I can win in. And I think these guys can provide that for me."

Hendrick said he had been trying to make the deal happen for 15 years, but things never quite fell into place.

Now he has grabbed on to a chance to put an established veteran in the No. 5, the first car number he ran and one that's close to his heart. And he wants to make sure Martin gets as much out of the experience as he can.

"It's winning races and a championship, but having fun too, and enjoying being around a person that you like and respect," Hendrick said. "And so I think the chemistry is there. We don't have to worry about any of that. We're just going to go out and try to make our organization better, win a lot of races, and get another Cup."

Fun hasn't always been Martin's forte, because he has spent most of his career looking at the glass-half-empty aspects. But even he knew this was an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

"I told [wife] Arlene when we talked about this, I'm pretty sure that the last breath I took on my death bed would be, 'I should have drove Rick's car when I had the chance,'" Martin said. "I didn't want to do that or regret that until the last breath I took.

"Remember that old thing that I said about making up your mind come hell or high water -- I made up my mind that I was going to drive that 5 car, whatever it took. And we are going to do it, and do it with a smile."