Even without a championship, Mark Martin satisfied with Hall of Fame career

Forty Cup Series wins, 96 total wins across NASCAR’s three national touring series. A sterling résumé that has earned Mark Martin a spot in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which the 58-year-old will be inducted into Friday night (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN).

What Martin never did in his 31-year career was win a championship at the sport’s highest level, though he came painstakingly close. Five times the Batesville, Ark., native finished runner-up in the standings. He was NASCAR’s version of Dan Marino, Karl Malone, or Ernie Banks -- great players who never were able to grasp the championship trophy.

Always one to be candid, Martin is blunt about why he never won a championship.

“It’s because I never scored enough points to win one. That’s that,” Martin said. “I would have won (a championship) if I had scored more points than anyone else.”

Also being inducted alongside Martin at the ceremony, held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in downtown Charlotte, are car owners Richard Childress, Rick Hendrick, and Raymond Parks, and driver Benny Parsons.

Childress and Hendrick remain active and have won six and 12 championships, respectively, while Parks, who died in 2010, owned the car Red Byron drove to the first NASCAR championship in 1949. Parsons is the 1973 Cup Series champion and was a popular television analyst before passing away in 2007.

Among the five, almost fittingly, Martin is the lone inductee never to have won a championship. He was voted into the Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility.

“The people in that Hall of Fame are my heroes,” Martin said. “They’re the founders of the sport, the real men that did it with their bare hands. I’m a little bit uncomfortable going in there with them to be honest with you, because I don’t feel like I belong in that kind of company.”

Martin placed second to Dale Earnhardt in 1990 and 1994, to Jeff Gordon in 1998, to Tony Stewart in 2002, and to Jimmie Johnson in 2009.

The 1990 defeat was the closest Martin came to a championship and also the most agonizing. Earlier in that season NASCAR controversially penalized Martin’s Roush Racing team 46 points for what officials deemed an oversized carburetor spacer plate, though many contended the part wasn’t a strict violation but in the gray area of between legal and illegal. Martin lost the title by 26 points.

But lacking a championship isn’t something that bothers Martin, who says he accepted he would never win a title after leaving Roush following the 2006 season. Martin would run a partial Cup schedule the next two years before resuming full-time competition in 2009, driving for Rick Hendrick’s team.

“I regret that I let that take an enormous amount of joy from me,” Martin said. “I let go of it in 2006. I refused to allow it to deprive me of that joy. I have a lot to be thankful and grateful for. I’m proud of what I accomplished in my career. I’m not sour about one thing I didn’t accomplish.”

Martin retired following the 2013 season, winding up his career as a substitute for the injured Tony Stewart at Stewart-Haas Racing. His 40 Cup wins has him 17th on the all-time list, the second-most for a driver without a championship behind Junior Johnson (50).

While racing, Martin’s intensity was such that often it appeared he was not enjoying himself. With the time and perspective that retirement brings, Martin says he can now appreciate his successes, but admits what he’s proud of will occur Friday night.

“Although I had done a lot of cool and amazing things in my career, this obviously is the crown jewel of my career,” Martin said. “When I was racing, because I was so busy whatever I achieved I didn’t pay any attention to, I just kept storming forward worrying about how I was going to win the next race.

”Now that I sort of have had time to soak in (being inducted), it’s sort of like the last big deal, or the big win.”