In his day, Mark Martin was one of the most popular drivers in NASCAR. He was gritty, showed no fear and said what was on his mind. But if Martin, who retired after the 2013 season, was still racing today, it would be hard to imagine him literally wearing a muzzle about what he could say or do. And that’s what the NASCAR Hall of Famer says is wrong with NASCAR these days.
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Speaking on Thursday’s Kenny Conversation with host Kenny Wallace, Martin said the biggest problem is how today’s NASCAR drivers lack the kind of no-holds-barred personalities from the sport’s golden days — even all the way up through much of his own career.
Somewhere along the way, drivers became afraid to speak their minds or step out of line, rather being forced to curry favor with both sponsors and NASCAR officials. For example, if the late Dale Earnhardt was still racing today, he likely wouldn’t be ‘The Intimidator’, maybe more like ‘The Intimidated’.
“Water(ing) down the personalities hasn’t helped,” Martin said. “I truly believe that the drivers today are not nearly as vanilla as they appear to be. And I’ll guarantee you (seven-time Cup champion) Jimmie Johnson was not. In fact, Jimmie Johnson’s one hell of a character, but he never showed that because of the commercialism of the sport.
“And I think that has stopped this next generation as emerging as big superheroes. I watched the race Sunday (in Mexico City) and I’m looking at those guys out there and they’re driving their asses off. It’s incredible, but yet so many people don’t realize that there’s just not enough superheroes.”
Wallace then replied to Martin, wanting to give his take, surprisingly criticizing four-time Cup champ and NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon, who is now vice-chair of Hendrick Motorsports, essentially the No. 2 man in Team Hendrick behind owner Rick Hendrick.
“Jeff Gordon wants his drivers vanilla and that’s what I want everybody to know. Jeff wants robotic, corporate drivers,” Wallace said. “He doesn’t want anybody bucking the system.”
Rick Hendrick didn’t try to change Martin when he drove for him
Martin appeared to nod his head in agreement. He also told the story of how he twice turned down Rick Hendrick to drive for him before finally agreeing to do so from 2009 through 2011.
But there was a key difference between Martin and Johnson. When he joined Team Hendrick, it was with the understanding that Martin had the latitude to be the kind of driver he always had been, a non-conformist badass who didn’t care about having to watch what he said or did on the racetrack.
“There was zero pressure on me to be anything different than who I was,” Martin said. “But Jimmie came in, he was a rookie. He would want to conform. And that’s one of the problems that we have is there may not always be pressure to conform, it may be that what you think people want or expect from you, therefore you do it.”
According to Martin, NASCAR isn’t short on talent — it’s just running low on unapologetic, unfiltered personalities who once made the sport larger than life.
