Challenging Conventional Wisdom On Busch & Martin

One thing I’ve never been accused of is being conventional……… or having much wisdom either, for that matter.

I got to thinking about a couple of things that I’ve read numerous stories about and that I’m not sure I agree with. The first is that IF Kyle Busch manages to win 200 + races, spread across Cup, Nationwide, and Truck Series, that it will somehow define his career.
I don’t really think that will be the case, even if he were to pull it off.

How did this speculation come about? Just my guess, but I expect that some writer on deadline- on a slow news day- came up with it.
Then a couple of others picked up on this, and before we know it,
it’s become the conventional wisdom. Maybe Kyle or his publicist came up with it, doesn’t really matter.

Why 200? probably first off, because that’s “The King’s” total, and secondly, because it’s doable. People say that no driver will approach Richard’s record because the number of races have been cut back in the modern era. This is  partially true. It’s not the number of races, but the fact that no one today can dominate
like Richard did.

If we take an average of the years that Petty ran at least 1/2 of the schedule, we come up with 38.25.  With 36 races currently,
IF anyone were to dominate like he did in his best years, then his record could be beaten. It’s just not going to happen. Some records aren’t meant to be broken.

Steve Kinser is The “King of the Outlaws.” He’s won 20 World of Outlaw Championships, 12 Knoxville Nationals, and he’s had 513 “A” Main wins through 2005. These are the numbers that define his career.

Who knows, or really cares how many “B” Main wins he’s had along the way? Richard’s career is defined, as is Dale Earnhardt’s by their 7 Cup Championships. Without the championships, while Richard’s 200 wins would still be significant,  his career would just be judged differently.

Winning 200 races spread among the 3 top series should be very doable. As I said, Richard had an average of 38.25 races. Today with 36 Cup, 35 NNS, and 25 CWTS races, that’s 96 potential opportunities.

Also- Richard didn’t have a plane, a helicopter, and a luxury motorcoach when most of these wins took place. Not just Kyle, but all Cup driver’s careers will be judged by what they did in Cup, not what they were able to do in the lesser series. Championships will always trump wins.

Speaking of championships, this brings me to my second stab at conventional wisdom. If I’ve read this once, I’ve read it dozens of times: it’s that Mark Martin is the best Cup driver never to have won a championship.

This is probably based on a couple of facts: #1  Mark has finished second 5 times. #2 The vast majority of people that are putting this forward are probably way more familiar with Mark’s career, because they’ve had the opportunity to see it unfold.

Mark has 40 wins in 758 starts, spread over 27 years. He finished second in 1990, ‘94, ‘98, 2002, and ‘09. Of his 27 seasons, he ran a full schedule in 21 of them. He has an average start of 11.7, and  an average finish of 13.3. A very commendable record, and one that’s still ongoing.

Let’s look at a couple of others. Junior Johnson had 50 wins in 313 starts, over 14 years. Of these 14 seasons, in 2 of them he ran 1 race, 1 year he ran 4 times, in another he only ran 7. So in 4 of his 14 years he only ran a total of 13 races. He has an average start of 7.2, and an average finish of 13.5. Don’t forget, he’s the guy that first figured out drafting.

Fireball Roberts had 33 wins in 206 starts, over 15 seasons. He had 4 wins out of 16 starts in the Convertible series, as NASCAR ran this as a separate series, even though they ran together at times. These wins are not reflected in his 33 win total.

Of these 15 seasons, in only 2, (1956 and ‘57) did he run over half of the races. In 1958, he only ran 10 races, but won 6 of them, with 9 top 10 finishes. His career was tragically cut short 10 races into the 1964 season at Charlotte at age 35. His average start was 7.5, average finish was 13.2. Neither Junior nor Fireball ever ran a full season.

If someone wanted to make the case that Mark has come the closest without winning a Championship, I couldn’t argue with that. But best driver not to have won a Championship? I’m not so sure about that.