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danjay6
Guest
I got this off another board but I thought it was pretty cool. I know most of you are not Mark Martin fans if not dont read but if you are pretty interesting stats.
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With Mark's well deserved 10th invitation to the 2003 IROC Series got me thinking a little. He will become IROC's all-time leading money winner this year (currently D. Earnhardt is #1 with 1,286,960 Mark #2 with 1,275,000) he may well become the IROC Series all-time race winner (currently Earnhardt and Unser Jr.have 11 Mark is 3rd with 10) and he may very well become the first 5-Time champion as he and Big E currently have 4 apiece. Mark has done his damage in 36 IROC races for a winning % of 27.78 where Earnhardt raced in 68 races 16.18% and Unser Jr. ran 60 races for winning % of 18.33. I wonder if enough non die-hard Martin fans realize the totality of his resume as I believe it ranks up there somewhere in the top 10 or so best ever and perception would vault him higher with a Cup title. The guy is a 4-Time champ in ASA with only Mike Eddy ahead of him with 7 titles and Mark ran about 8 full seasons to Mike's 25 or so. He has 1 Truck win in 2 starts. He of course is the Busch Series All-Time race winner with 45 wins in I believe 200 starts (22.5%). He has somewhere around 16 Artgo (now the Remax Challenge Series) wins along with his 22 ASA victories. He has won in ARCA and of course the 24 hours of Daytona in class multiple times. He has won a road course race (non-Cup) in L.A. In Winston Cup he has 33 wins (17th all-time), I think 4th in winnings all-time with $36 million, has won on short flat tracks, short high banked tracks, intermediate, unrestricted superspeedways, restrictor plate superspeedways, and 2 different road courses. He has finished in the top 3 in the Winston Cup point standings (8 times and I know they are all seconds or thirds) more times than Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte, Terry Labonte, Ricky Rudd, Bill Elliott, Dale Jarrett, or Sterling Marlin.....All of these guys except Rudd and Marlin have been Cup champions. He has done all of this while being an obsessive, focused, and intense competitor yet has had no major run ins with his fellow competitors due to any rough or dirty racing. His resume as far as results is very very impressive and if you take in consideration that he has done it so clean and with such enormous respect of his fellow competitors it stacks up with most of the all-time greatest drivers/competitors. I think we would all be amazed how instantly perception would distort if Mark won the Winston Cup title..They (media/other fans) would be talking about how great Mark's career has been. Perception if he won a title would be that his career has been far better than Elliott, either Labonte, or Jarrett. Isn't perception amazing? His career is already better than those guys and one of the upper greatest stock car drivers of all-time now. I guess all of us just have to remember that and the rest of what happens in his career from here on out is all gravy.
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With Mark's well deserved 10th invitation to the 2003 IROC Series got me thinking a little. He will become IROC's all-time leading money winner this year (currently D. Earnhardt is #1 with 1,286,960 Mark #2 with 1,275,000) he may well become the IROC Series all-time race winner (currently Earnhardt and Unser Jr.have 11 Mark is 3rd with 10) and he may very well become the first 5-Time champion as he and Big E currently have 4 apiece. Mark has done his damage in 36 IROC races for a winning % of 27.78 where Earnhardt raced in 68 races 16.18% and Unser Jr. ran 60 races for winning % of 18.33. I wonder if enough non die-hard Martin fans realize the totality of his resume as I believe it ranks up there somewhere in the top 10 or so best ever and perception would vault him higher with a Cup title. The guy is a 4-Time champ in ASA with only Mike Eddy ahead of him with 7 titles and Mark ran about 8 full seasons to Mike's 25 or so. He has 1 Truck win in 2 starts. He of course is the Busch Series All-Time race winner with 45 wins in I believe 200 starts (22.5%). He has somewhere around 16 Artgo (now the Remax Challenge Series) wins along with his 22 ASA victories. He has won in ARCA and of course the 24 hours of Daytona in class multiple times. He has won a road course race (non-Cup) in L.A. In Winston Cup he has 33 wins (17th all-time), I think 4th in winnings all-time with $36 million, has won on short flat tracks, short high banked tracks, intermediate, unrestricted superspeedways, restrictor plate superspeedways, and 2 different road courses. He has finished in the top 3 in the Winston Cup point standings (8 times and I know they are all seconds or thirds) more times than Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte, Terry Labonte, Ricky Rudd, Bill Elliott, Dale Jarrett, or Sterling Marlin.....All of these guys except Rudd and Marlin have been Cup champions. He has done all of this while being an obsessive, focused, and intense competitor yet has had no major run ins with his fellow competitors due to any rough or dirty racing. His resume as far as results is very very impressive and if you take in consideration that he has done it so clean and with such enormous respect of his fellow competitors it stacks up with most of the all-time greatest drivers/competitors. I think we would all be amazed how instantly perception would distort if Mark won the Winston Cup title..They (media/other fans) would be talking about how great Mark's career has been. Perception if he won a title would be that his career has been far better than Elliott, either Labonte, or Jarrett. Isn't perception amazing? His career is already better than those guys and one of the upper greatest stock car drivers of all-time now. I guess all of us just have to remember that and the rest of what happens in his career from here on out is all gravy.
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