Hard to quantify sports question

[JACK CUST]

Best example I can think of is 01 team. Last year and quite a few years before that it was driven by Joe Nemecheck who consistently ran mid-pack (think mid-20's at best) or worse while rarely running up front. This season the car has been driven on a part-time basis by Mark Martin who has ran up front nearly every race he has been in. Now, the team was bought out by new owner in between those seasons who did spend some more money on resources, but it is hard to say how much effect that would have over the course of one short offseason. Perhaps mitigating that concern somewhat, Joe Nemecheck was moved to the 13 team (same owner as 01) and has ran mid-pack or worse, usually worse, and failed to qualify for a few races. But... the 13 team was unsponsored so likely received lesser share of the car owner's resources than the 01 team. In fact, the 13 team recently folded and the 01 team was merged/sold to a different organization. So you see what I mean by endless caveats.

Anyway, with that and the rest of their careers in mind, I think we can take some very simple educated guesses at the talent level of these two drivers: Mark Martin = likely one of the best of all time. Joe Nemecheck = likely fairly mediocre at best.

edit: you do run into similar problems as you do trying to evaluate QBs in football, except there is no nifty DVOA-style NASCAR stat