RIP Mark Martin. He's in danger of losing the only crown I thought he would never lose.
I love how you categorize performance both relative to the field and relative to one's own teammates, because I think the perception that swings this argument oftentimes is that the Roush cars were always really weak (with the exception of about 2002-13, but that misses Mark's prime) and the Gibbs cars were always really strong, especially upon the Toyota switch. This is the weird thing about auto racing, as points are scored relative to the field, but driver evaluation is often done relative to one's teammates.
In all honesty, I thought Mark would be much further ahead than this. Pour one out for Harry Gant. I don't know what the story behind that teammate domination is all about, but he's just too far behind in performance relative to the field to be a part of this discussion, which leaves us with the quartet in the bottom left quadrant of Hamlin, Edwards, Martin, and Davey Allison.
Considering you used the word best (and not greatest), Davey Allison gets to stay despite the very short career he had, but the issue is that the meaning of the word championship is different for all of these four men. Championship in Davey's day meant the best and most consistent driver over the course of a whole season, in a system that rewarded not being bad much more than it rewarded being good, which is where Davey struggled. Just one fewer DNF in 1992 and that championship could've been his easily, despite being well off top form for most of the season.
Mark's style was perfectly tailored to this system, but he just got the horrendous luck of having to share his best years with the monstrous Hendrick 24 car. As soon as Jeff started falling off with the departure of Ray Evernham, Mark had started falling off also. Mark's 1998 would've been a championship in almost every other season. If he could've had his 1998 not in 1998 he wouldn't have been on this list either.
For Carl, the definition of championship had changed to the best driver over the final ten races of the season, which was not quite Carl's style. He still very nearly did it in a Roush car that just didn't have the speed in 2011 (if it did he would've won more than once), but fell just short in an effort that remains extremely impressive even in the absence of a championship.
For Denny, the championship is not about being the best at all. He did get near one championship in the original chase era, but for the most part his true contending has been done with the elimination format, which can't decide what it wants to reward. It doesn't reward winning (if it did, why do two and three win drivers keep winning championships?). It doesn't reward consistently finishing well either, because regular season rewards are not big enough, and the gap that can be built in three weeks is not big enough.
These days, championship four appearances almost mean more than the championships, which comes close to disqualifying Denny from being in this argument at all for me.
That comment turned out to be very long, but in short, I'm not sure of the answer to the question 'the best driver without a championship,' and I'm not sure if I ever will be, because what a championship is and what it means across this main quartet changed two different times, from being the best team and driver over the whole season, to being the best driver and team only across the final ten races, to ... whatever we have now. These drivers and teams were chasing entirely different goals, so it almost doesn't feel right to compare them.
Thank you for this insightful comment! I don't really know the definitive answer, either, and as an adopted Arkansan I am hesitant to underrate Mark Martin. Most interesting is your assessment that the meaning of a championship has changed significantly over time, particularly in the pre-Chase vs post-Chase/Playoff era.
RIP Mark Martin. He's in danger of losing the only crown I thought he would never lose.
I love how you categorize performance both relative to the field and relative to one's own teammates, because I think the perception that swings this argument oftentimes is that the Roush cars were always really weak (with the exception of about 2002-13, but that misses Mark's prime) and the Gibbs cars were always really strong, especially upon the Toyota switch. This is the weird thing about auto racing, as points are scored relative to the field, but driver evaluation is often done relative to one's teammates.
In all honesty, I thought Mark would be much further ahead than this. Pour one out for Harry Gant. I don't know what the story behind that teammate domination is all about, but he's just too far behind in performance relative to the field to be a part of this discussion, which leaves us with the quartet in the bottom left quadrant of Hamlin, Edwards, Martin, and Davey Allison.
Considering you used the word best (and not greatest), Davey Allison gets to stay despite the very short career he had, but the issue is that the meaning of the word championship is different for all of these four men. Championship in Davey's day meant the best and most consistent driver over the course of a whole season, in a system that rewarded not being bad much more than it rewarded being good, which is where Davey struggled. Just one fewer DNF in 1992 and that championship could've been his easily, despite being well off top form for most of the season.
Mark's style was perfectly tailored to this system, but he just got the horrendous luck of having to share his best years with the monstrous Hendrick 24 car. As soon as Jeff started falling off with the departure of Ray Evernham, Mark had started falling off also. Mark's 1998 would've been a championship in almost every other season. If he could've had his 1998 not in 1998 he wouldn't have been on this list either.
For Carl, the definition of championship had changed to the best driver over the final ten races of the season, which was not quite Carl's style. He still very nearly did it in a Roush car that just didn't have the speed in 2011 (if it did he would've won more than once), but fell just short in an effort that remains extremely impressive even in the absence of a championship.
For Denny, the championship is not about being the best at all. He did get near one championship in the original chase era, but for the most part his true contending has been done with the elimination format, which can't decide what it wants to reward. It doesn't reward winning (if it did, why do two and three win drivers keep winning championships?). It doesn't reward consistently finishing well either, because regular season rewards are not big enough, and the gap that can be built in three weeks is not big enough.
These days, championship four appearances almost mean more than the championships, which comes close to disqualifying Denny from being in this argument at all for me.
That comment turned out to be very long, but in short, I'm not sure of the answer to the question 'the best driver without a championship,' and I'm not sure if I ever will be, because what a championship is and what it means across this main quartet changed two different times, from being the best team and driver over the whole season, to being the best driver and team only across the final ten races, to ... whatever we have now. These drivers and teams were chasing entirely different goals, so it almost doesn't feel right to compare them.
Thank you for this insightful comment! I don't really know the definitive answer, either, and as an adopted Arkansan I am hesitant to underrate Mark Martin. Most interesting is your assessment that the meaning of a championship has changed significantly over time, particularly in the pre-Chase vs post-Chase/Playoff era.