RELATED: Photos from the induction day
Mark Martin told the tale more than once on NASCAR Hall of Fame Voting Day this week, about his connection to fellow inductee Benny Parsons.
Martin was a teenager — “a nobody,” as he termed it — with racing dreams carved from his earliest days of wheeling cars on dirt. Parsons, in the prime of his driving career in the mid-1970s, took time for the Arkansas youngster and his father, sharing advice over lunch in his hometown of Ellerbe, North Carolina.
Talk about a follow-through. Martin, 57, joined Parsons among the five chosen for induction in the NASCAR Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017.
“It hasn’t soaked in yet,” Martin said by telephone Wednesday after the Hall’s announcement. “I didn’t expect it. It is, by far, the crown jewel of my career and I’m so grateful for the people that helped me get there.”
Martin wasn’t in Charlotte to hear his name called; instead, he was on his way to Indianapolis, reasoning that he wouldn’t be among the five inductees this year. Martin was named on 57 percent of the voting panel’s ballots, third-most among the 20 nominees. Still, he took the unexpected nature of being selected to heart, saying, “If I would’ve been on the voting panel, I would’ve probably voted another way.”
Martin’s credentials — both his success and his longevity across four decades in NASCAR competition — eventually won out in just his second year on the ballot. Martin won 40 times in NASCAR’s top division and combined for 56 more victories in its other two national series.
But Martin acknowledged the gaps in his resume, those that he came heart-wrenchingly close to achieving. Among those were his five runner-up finishes in the championship standings and his 0-for-29 career streak in the Daytona 500, the sport’s most prestigious race.
After Wednesday’s accomplishment, Martin said that Hall of Fame induction fills any potential voids.
“Look, I don’t have a Daytona 500 trophy and I don’t have a championship trophy, and I said many times that when people would complain about my not having one of those, I would ask the question: ‘How would my life be different if I had one?’ ” Martin said. “And I truly believe that my life would not be very different. But my life will be different from now on because I’m in that Hall, because that is my crown jewel.
“That speaks of not one year worth of success, not one great achievement, but a body of work, and that’s what I’m proud of.”