Mark Martin is in the news this week for a couple of different things. The famed 65-year-old former NASCAR driver and 2017 inductee into the NASCAR Hall of Fame waved the starting green flag at the GEICO 500 at Talledega Sunday. Ahead of that, he did numerous media interviews, and one on Barstool Sports’ Rubbin Is Racing podcast Thursday particularly took off.
Many NASCAR fans had long been aware of Martin’s love of rap music. But the specific discussion the famed driver (who posted 40 Cup Series wins and 49 wins in what’s now the Xfinity Series during his career) had on this podcast about Gucci Mane got a lot of wider attention. First, here’s a key part of his appearance there:
And here are some of the quotes from that appearance, transcribed by Fox News’ Ryan Gaydos:
“I got on Dr. Dre in about 2002. I evolved from that to Eminem. And then, I had one of my son’s friends, you know they were kids, ask me if I listen to Gucci Mane. I didn’t know who it was. As soon as I found him, it was like crazy. You couldn’t get him hardly anything on iTunes. You had to go to Datpiff.com. It was free all the music was free, but you had to figure out how to download it on your computer and put it over to your phone.
“I’ma tell you right now, in my opinion, there is no one in the same zip code with Gucci Mane. If I rapped, I would never do a duo with him. Every time he does one with anybody, he just crushes them. I mean, this guy is unbelievable. I do like the old Gucci much better than the new Gucci. I liked his old music. I like him when he was fat and scary.”
This got a lot of positive reaction. Here’s some of that:
It was interesting to see Martin talk so candidly about his Gucci Mane fandom here, and to see the wider attention that drew.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.