I feel like Mark has definitely made a comeback this year, especially with the win at Phoenix and the win tonight at Darlington. He out-schooled Jimmie Johnson by driving slower in order to go faster. He’s a veteran and he knows how to drive. Regardless of whether he’s “too nice” or whatever else people will say… Mark Martin is a true champion with or without the official title.

P.S. Mark is my favorite driver (as if you could not already tell ) and I also relate to him because we are both from Arkansas. I would love for Mark to win a championship, especially since he’s going full time next year, too. But ultimately, I am elated for him because he’s 50 years old and he is having the best time of his life. You gotta love that, Martin fan or not!

But then I started to think….did I make a good pick? Is Mark really gonna go for the gusto thru 3 & 4 and into the tri-oval on the last lap? Is he willing to trade paint on my behalf and bring me the jackpot, even though it’s only a qualifier?

Keep in mind, Dale Sr. bagged twelve, yes (12) of those duel trophies and never collected a point. Although Mark was all time winless in his quest for a single duel, this was to be his (and mine) year for glory.

Now most probably don’t remember Thursday 2/12 this year and who emerged to Daytona’s victory lane in Duel #2, but I sure as heck do. Mark had a rocket ship in the HMS #5 that day. Even a problem, or two, during the short 150 miler couldn’t hold Mark down. He drove fast, aggressive and smart to lead the pack into the last lap famed turn 3. I listened to Mark on my scanner virtually the entire sprint and he was hungry for more than Corn Flakes. Nothing was to deter Mark (and me) from collecting the goods this day. Well, except…

Up comes Baby Busch from down low and puts a 3-lane slide job on Mark. I could see it coming, but I just knew Mark was, just this once, gonna let Busch commit to the block, tuck it low (maybe give Baby a wiggle on his way) with an over/under move and lead to the stripe.

Sadly though, Mark gave #18 the room he needed and ironically actually kept Baby from wrecking himself into that infamous turn 4 wall. Busch never backed off all the way to the checker. Arrrrgh!

Mark made the smart move to save the race car(s) for the 500 and relinquish the spoils to the young lion. Arrrrgh again!

On the cool down lap on the scanner Mark thanked Mr. Hendrick and the crew profusely for the “awesome” (btw Mark’s favorite word) sled and apologized sincerely for not “bringing home the bacon”. Then Mark, with a hint of frustration, said “if that would have been the 500, I wouldn’t have given that little &@#$ a break”.

As fate would have it, on Sunday, the 500 became the Daytona 380 and the #5 Mark was saving for the “grudge match” finished 16th.

Now Mark Martin is “the” class act of the field and known by all of the drivers as, “the guy you want to be battling side by side on the last lap”. After all, he will race you straight up…agreed?

My question: Is it good to be known as “that guy”? Off track, for sure. But what about on track? I think sometimes we need to separate the two.

As for me, and God willing, I’m picking Mark again in next year’s duel and taking the jackpot!

But what I like in Neon’s original email is that even when asked about his career, Martin doesn’t answer it in measurements about championships won, he answers the questions with measurements about intangibles of driving ability. If we take anything away from his remarks, its that even though he might value his talent below that of others, we can all value his passion for racing highly BECAUSE he had to work so much harder towards something that may not have been as innate to him. His dedication shows how bad we wanted to succeed. You always hear the expression, Anything worth doing, is worth doing right. And I think, without a doubt, he did it the right way and the cards just haven’t fallen for him. And even though his mantle might not have a Winston cup on it, it doesn’t sound like that is his only measure of success, and I think he’s right to think that way.

Dale Jarrett was a champion and a clean driver. Bobby Labonte has a reputation for being a clean racer, too. And while it is reaching back some, Bill Elliott did not use the bumper as a weapon of choice, either.

A nit-picking penalty after the 1990 Spring Richmond Race cost Martin the 1990 Winston Cup championship that he should have won.

A few years back Marty Smith posed this same question on Nascar.com and I responded that I felt if Martin were not such a “clean” racer he would have been a champion. Marty Smith whole-heartedly disagreed with my statement citing Terry Labonte an an example.

If I recall correctly Marty Smith replied to my statement saying Terry Labonte raced “As clean as a maternity room floor” and won 2 championships.

I think it works both ways though. Take Phoenix a couple weeks ago, we all know Tony Stewart is not afraid to use a bumper to move someone and take a win. I think it’s also safe to say that if he caught Mark he would not have done it. If he could not pass clean he would not pass. This is due to the respect he has for Mark Martin.

No matter what the stats are at the end of his career Mark Martin has accomplished more racing cleanly than many guys ever will by racing dirty. Mark if you are reading this I love the man and the racer you are, you are a champion in my eyes.

let me start by saying i have been a huge fan of mark’s since 1995. while i agree with you that mark’s driving style may have cost him close to a dozen wins i can’t say i think it hurt him in his title runs. back before this nonsense of the chase if you look at the years mark finished second in the standings you would see even if he had been a little more aggresive and won a race or two more he still would have been short. the reward for winning a race over second place as far as points go just wasn’t enough back then for mark to justify the risks.

look at 1990 for example, one of the most infamous years in mark’s career. as most people know mark lost the championship to earnhardt that year by just 26 points after being fined 40 something points earlier in the season for an illegal intake manifold. some die hard mark martin fans believe that cost him a title. technically if you take that fine away mark wins the title that year. mark doesn’t see it that way though and that is one of the reasons i fell in love with him. i would watch replays and ill never forget his quote when he was asked about coming up short that year and the penalty. he basically said they just didn’t perform as good as they needed to at certain tracks. they took a yates car to atlanta that year looking for anything that would give them an edge and ended up hurting themselves. they ran poorly that day and i personally look at that day as what cost mark the title in 1990.

think about mark’s second place finish in 98. he had 7 wins that year and scored enough points that he would have won the title any other year up to that point. jeff gordon however had a year that you just didn’t see back then. he railed off 13 wins and killed mark in the championship. if mark had pushed the enveloped and maybe 2 more races that year he still would have wound up short. but think about it…. any other year to that point he had scored more points than any winston cup champion.

there was an article written about 7 or 8 years ago that spoke about how mark was the champion of the 90s. he scored more top 5s, more top 10s and most importantly more points than any other driver through that decade. unfortunately for mark there is no trophy for that.

the last point i want to make is 2002. this was mark’s year. this was supposed to be the year that mark finally brought jack roush his first title. the 6 team was so strong that year. they broke a pretty decent winless streak at the coke 600 that year and then showed up at dover the following week and flat out dominated the first half of that race. i was there and i almost cried then mark wrecked off of two as he was trying to lap steve park and ryan newman. these two were battling for position when mark ran up behind them they had wrecked and mark had nowhere to go. mark clearly had the car to beat that day but was relegated to a 30 something place finish. mark lost about 100 points that day. he lost the title that year by about 38 points to smoke. he was still in the hunt though. then he had the issue at dega where on the warmup laps before the green flag his steering locked up and he almost hit the 88. he was laps down before the race even started basically. even with that there was still hope. the dagger for me was at kansas. mark was running solid. i will never forget it. i was outside having a smoke when i heard alan bestwick yell “the championship leader is blowing up” “smoke is pouring out of the 6 car and mark martin wil head down pit road”. i ran inside and saw mark easing that smoke filled cvar down pit road and i wanted to cry. how could it be. why? why mark? he fought back from everything that tried to get in his way that year but couldn’t dodge a blown engine with just a handful of races to go. mark raced his guts out and made stewart sweat at homestead that year but it just wasn’t enough.

so as you can see by my examples. a win at all cost attitude isn’t what cost mark a championship. things just have a way of not working out for mark. i think he has finally accepted that and truly believes that the respect he has from his competitors is more important to him than a winston cup trophy. why do you think he walked away while leading the points in the 01 car. he knew what the chances were of keeping that up with that team in that car. he just didn’t want the heartbreak. look at the race last week. he didn’t want to climb back in that car at that racetrack. if this were 10 years ago they would have done whatever they had to do to make 1 more lap after wrecking at dega to pick up 3 points. im loving mark’s new attitude. he is gonna run the shit out of that 5 car to win races and they’ll let the points fall where they may.

A few races later, Martin was the points leader. Was building a legitimate chance to win the championship…

…Then he walked away. He refused to change the partial-season schedule he had set up for himself, and just walked away from the points lead.

If nothing else, this taught me that winning the championship is not Martin’s number one goal. I can respect him for that, and whatever goals he sets for himself, but I don’t know if that has always been true, since I paid little to no attention to NASCAR before 2007.

I’ll give Kudos to Martin now for being the kind of racer he wants to be, and really, showing more talent than probably 3/4th of the field.