Mark Martin Extraordinary Gentlemen

The word ordinary, by itself, alludes to someone or something with no special or distinctive features. Add in the prefix “extra” and the meaning changes quite dramatically. Rather than referencing something not so special, extraordinary is used to describe something very unusual or remarkable.

It’s an apt method for describing the accomplishments of a select group of gentlemen competing in this weekend’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.

As the home track for the majority of NASCAR teams, Charlotte has hosted 109 Sprint Cup events in its 53-year history, with 45 different drivers having visited victory lane. Of those 45 different winners, only 28 have multiple Charlotte wins. That list becomes even more select when checking drivers with four or more wins. There are only 11 in that category, and Mark Martin, interim driver of the No. 14 Bass Pro Shops/Mobil 1 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), is one of them.

Martin, driving in place of the injured Tony Stewart, will make his 58th career Sprint Cup start at Charlotte Saturday night in the Bank of America 500. In doing so, Martin will enter a league of his own, as he will own the most Sprint Cup starts at Charlotte among active drivers. He currently shares the mark with Terry Labonte.

Of Martin’s 40 career Sprint Cup wins, four have been earned at Charlotte. Only three other active drivers have four or more wins at Charlotte, with five-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson leading the way with six victories. Jeff Gordon trails with five wins and Kasey Kahne, like Martin, has four victories.

Martin picked up his first Sprint Cup win at Charlotte in October 1992. He passed polesitter Alan Kulwicki for the lead on lap 40 and led the next 22 laps around the 1.5-mile oval. As the laps wound down, Martin and Kulwicki traded the top spot a handful of times, with Martin gaining the upper hand with a little more than 30 laps to go. Martin led six times for 107 laps en route to the victory.

With his second Charlotte win in October 1995, Martin embarked on an extraordinary run. Beginning with his victory in the 1995 UAW-GM Quality 500 and ending with his most recent Charlotte win – the 2002 Coca-Cola 600 – Martin rattled off 13 top-10 finishes in 14 races, 11 of which were results of fifth or better, among them a win in October 1998. His lone finish outside the top-10 was a 12th-place effort in the 2000 Coca-Cola 600.

Martin’s Charlotte resume also includes two poles, and his 18 top-fives and 24 top-10s lead all active drivers.

Already in elite company, Martin will attempt to burnish his Charlotte record by adding 334 more laps to his current tally of 18,349 laps completed since wheeling a Pontiac in the 1982 World 600. In a race where experience is just as important as horsepower and handling, Martin enters the Bank of America 500 with a solid portfolio.

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