Widely recognised as the greatest driver to never win a NASCAR championship, Mark Martin stayed competitive at the Cup level for close to three decades. As someone who started in the 1980s, when drivers were expected to know the ins-and-outs of the cars, Martin ended his career in the 2010s at a time when racing simulators took centre-stage for drivers to learn racing. So should this lack of knowledge about the machines be held against the drivers? The Hall of Famer does not think so.
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The former Hendrick driver appeared on ‘Rubbin is Racing’ podcast and explained that the new generation of drivers had a different kind of pressure that they deal with. During his time, most drivers used to start with weaker teams and only after overperforming with back-marker teams got an opportunity compete in a half-decent team. Currently, the drivers have a different way to prepare.
“Although they don’t have any experience working on cars they’ve got a lot of experience in Sims or iRacing or whatever, and they have a lot of data,” said Martin, who raced for Hendrick Motorsports starting 2009 and got access to state-of-the-art race simulators and data-capturing systems, facilities that have only improved since.
