‘I won 40 NASCAR Cup Series races – but I threw | Sports News

Mark Martin is one of probably the most adorned drivers in NASCAR historical past – but you wouldn’t understand it by his predominantly empty trophy case.

Over the course of a 31-12 months NASCAR premier collection profession, Martin amassed 49 Xfinity Series wins – the second-most all-time within the second-tier circuit – together with 40 victories within the Cup Series. From 1981 to 2013, he positioned second within the Cup Series standings on 5 separate events whereas additionally ending third 4 occasions.

In 2009, Martin – who not too long ago heaped reward on prospect Lanie Buncie and AJ Allmendinger – etched his title within the historical past books because the fourth driver to win a Cup Series race after turning 50 years previous. Eight years later, he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame alongside Benny Parsons, Rick Hendrick, Raymond Parks and Richard (*40*).

While Martin has achieved no scarcity of success during his a few years behind the wheel of a racecar, he conceded that his beforehand nomadic way of life compelled him to half methods with many of the accolades that he acquired within the early levels of his profession.

Speaking to Jeff Gluck during his last marketing campaign as a full-time Cup Series driver, Martin revealed that he was compelled to throw out all of his trophies after they had been severely broken during a collection of strikes. “I threw my trophies in the dumpster. All of them,” he mentioned on the time.

“I got married and we moved seven times in the first five years. I’m going to guess by the third or fourth move, I threw them all in the dumpster because they were already broken and beat up – and where was I supposed to put them? We were living in apartments, you know?”

Fortunately for Martin, he’s saved higher care of his Cup Series trophies after parting methods with practically each one of his pre-NASCAR awards. “I’ve got extremely little prior to NASCAR – I didn’t have any place to put the stuff, and I needed every dollar to reinvest toward moving up through the ranks and all,” he added.

“So I don’t have a lot of that, but I do have a lot since I started NASCAR racing. I’ve got quite a few cars and lots of uniforms.”

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Given all that Martin completed, it got here as considerably of a shock that he by no means managed to seize an elusive Cup Series championship. Fans and pundits alike have thus drawn comparisons between the Batesville, Arkansas native and Denny Hamlin, who’s won 56 occasions within the prime racing collection – together with at Martinsville Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway this 12 months – but remains to be with out a title.

According to Martin, nonetheless, Hamlin is way and away the higher driver of the 2. “Three Daytona 500’s and 55 wins [sic]. That’s 15 more than me,” he famous on X. “And three of them were Daytona 500s. And when he came on the scene as a rookie, he blew our doors off.

“I imply, Denny Hamlin, he is underrated. He does not get the credit he deserves.”