Driver Spotlight: Mark Martin

Nascar Behind the Wall Driver spotlight: Mark Martin. This segment will be a short article about where each driver is right now during the 2013 season. At the end of the season I will review some of the more interesting stories from Driver Spotlight.

Last week I started this Driver Spotlight column with Tony Stewart. A lot of talk was surrounding Smoke after the Fontana race going into Martinsville so I thought why not start there. Well last week Mark Martin also had a lot of buzz around him as confusion set in after Denny Hamlin needed to find a replacement for about 6 weeks while he was out with an injured back.

First Mark Martin was in until Denny came back and then it was just for Martinsville, either way it caused a lot of confusion and Social Media blew up wondering if 50 Cent would be driving the #11 car this past Sunday. In the end we found Mark Martin back in the #11 and most likely listening to 50 Cent so it was a happy medium.

Mark started off Martinsville back in 35 place after slow qualifying and less then stellar practice times. This left many Denny Hamlin fans attacking the decision to have Martin as a replacement. But by the end of Martinsvill Martin found his way to a 10th place finish, one better than Brian Vickers who was running the Aarons #55. The 10th place finish was also Martins best finish since the first race of the season, Daytona (3rd).

PHOTO: What do you think of @55markmartin's look in the @fedex black? #NASCAR twitter.com/NASCAR/status/…
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 5, 2013

Mark Martin is one of the more interesting drivers in Nascar in that he is a very well respected driver and no one really has anything against him. Maybe that is because he could be one of the best drivers in Nascar History to never win a Nascar Championship. Time is running out for Martin and odds say he will never get one (He doesn't run ever race during the season so that doesn't help).

However, their is a chance that Mark Martin could break one of the longest streaks right now in Nascar, and that is his current win less streak which is over 100 races long.  Mark Martin has not won a race since New Hampshire in 2009 and was a part of the We're Going Streaking article which highlighted which drivers in Nascar have the longest win less streaks.

The 2013 season has fared some mixed results for Martin. He has three top 15's, two top 10's, a top 5, and a pole in 5 races so far this season. The downside of that is Martin hasn't been a threat to win any of those races and that has been the case over the past few seasons. Martin seems to have a strong start to race's but when it counts he falls off and just has a good finish.

Can Mark Martin break that mold and better yet,

can he break his streak and get one last trip downVictory Lane? Most Nascar fans that I know would agree that it would be a nice way for Mark Martin to go off (Whenever he finally hangs it up and just races a few here and there). But will it actually happen? Hopefully we revisit this Spotlight at the end of the season to talk about how he broke his win less streak in 2013.