Coming off of a 16th place finish at Daytona to kick of his relationship with Hendrick Motorsports, Mark Martin has all intentions of collecting a better result at this weekend at Auto Club Speedway.

After taking the green, Martin will have started in his 16th event in Fontana and has an impressive list of accomplishments at the two-mle oval. With a win at the venue in 1998, Martin has also amassed four top-5 and seven top-10 finishes at California.

"I do feel a bit of relief getting past the Daytona 500 for lot of reasons," noted Martin. "First of all, our performance was awesome at Daytona. So, it feels good knowing that. Even more than that, though, you can control your own destiny at the next tracks that are coming up. So I'm excited to get out there and get down to business week in and out with Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) and the team."

Currently resting in the 15th spot in the points, Martin has earned the No. 5 team its highest point position leaving Daytona since 2000 when Terry Labonte earned a 7th place finish in the "Great American Race".

With the relationship between crew and driver still growing, the No. 5 team will begin to click better as the season moves foward.

"I feel really good and really comfortable with this race team, but certainly there are a few more lessons to learn," Martin admitted. "From my standpoint, I've really found areas that I may be able to help with. The team is so strong and has so much depth. Initially, I didn't think I could bring anything to the table, but now with last week behind us, I see areas that I should've been more engaged in. As we move forward, Alan (Gustafson) will find areas where he can help me a little more as well. We're not at 100 percent yet, but I certainly feel we're at 90 percent and will make gains as we go. We'll just take one race at a time and learn more about how we can complement each other."