In March 2025, Christopher Bell came close to a NASCAR record. The Cup Series driver won three races consecutively in Atlanta, COTA, and Phoenix – and was vying for a fourth one in Las Vegas. If not for a faulty pit call, Bell would have joined an elite club of Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt, Mark Martin, and others. One of the drivers in that club has a unique sheen, as Martin recently recalled.

Mark Martin remembered getting humbled

“Harry was smooth, he was smart, he was calculated. And he focused. My driving style wound up being a lot similar to his. He focused on that last after the last pit stop. That’s when he really dropped the hammer,” Mark Martin said recently in a Kenny Wallace channel episode. “I’m sure he had dominant races as well. I just probably wasn’t admiring that as much as where it just put the whole race all afternoon was all headed toward that last run after the last pit stop.”

In May 2025, Harry Gant was announced as one of the inductees to the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Class of 2026. And along with this announcement was a fond recollection of Gant’s racecraft, which Mark Martin shed light on. Gant won 18 NASCAR premier series races, including two Southern 500 victories. He also won 21 times in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. Gant faced issues during races, but ended up beating everybody, as Martin recalled.

“Always something wrong with the car. He drove that Ed Whitaker’s car, which was, you know, a rocket ship, and I think that Chris was the crew chief, and everything Chris ever worked on was really fast. And Harry goes over there and drives that thing and whoop us, and then the next day he’d tell us what the car was, you know, old clutch was slipping or something,” Mark Martin said.

The now 85-year-old native of Taylorsville, North Carolina, did not make a NASCAR Cup Series start before 33. But after that first race in a 1973 Charlotte race, Harry Gant scripted history. Notably, he clinched four consecutive victories at age 51 that captivated fans in 1991. Mark Martin shared this age-defying feat when he won a 2009 Phoenix race as the only fourth 50-year-old driver to do so.

Good memories feature in NASCAR’s past with the presence of legends like Harry Gant. However, Mark Martin was worried about the future as well.

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Heaving a sigh of relief

The NASCAR lawsuit, which ended about a month ago, was on the brink of brewing a storm. The fight that Michael Jordan and Co. waged against NASCAR’s owners could have shaken the very foundations of the sport. However, a settlement was reached with key concessions, including permanent charters, improved revenue sharing, and greater team involvement in rule-making. Add a revisit to the playoff format and raised horsepower, and you have a recipe for a bright future.

That is what relieved Mark Martin as well, as he looks forward to better times. “Well, I think it was a win for everyone. It was a win for the fans. It was a win for NASCAR to get it behind them. And it was a win for the teams. I can’t think of a better resolution to the lawsuit. I really dreaded it, I really was afraid of what was going to happen with our sport going forward,” he said.

With the sport on the right track and its veterans respected, we can hope for the best. Let’s wait and see what 2026 brings.