NASA-CAR?

In today's edition of "why the hell would you spend time on that?", I was pouring over historical data of the Cup series and wondered, right now, if put in a straight line, how far have these drivers gone cumulatively?

A couple of deduplications and sumifs here and there, and had a list. Then, looking at the top 30 drivers, I wondered how far would each of these total distances be in relation to the Moon? Turns out, 24 of the top 30 drivers would be currently past the Moon.

Of this list, only four active drivers are on it (Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Busch). Denny and Kyle have passed the Moon, while Joey is only 13,257 miles away from the lunar surface and Brad is 22,714 miles from reaching it. Last year, the season consisted of about 12959 miles, so Joey, you are approaching Moon Watch in 2027.

Mark Martin clocks in as the most distance driven in Cup racing, and when compared to the distance to Mars, the next milestone on the map, he's .001% of the way there.

In comparison, his 326,615 miles could have driven around the circumference of Earth for 13 laps.

I liked this little experiment because it not only shows just how far these drivers have gone in the seat of a car over the years, but also just how small that distance is in the grand scheme of things.

The chart is below. Enjoy.

Driver'	Total Miles Driven	Moon Distance	Miles +/-	Earth's Circumference	Times Around
Mark Martin	326615.78	238855	87760.78	24,901	13.11657271
Ricky Craven	322815.67	238855	83960.67	24,901	12.96396426
Shorty Gibbs	319197.34	238855	80342.34	24,901	12.8186554
Kevin Harvick	309728.21	238855	70873.21	24,901	12.43838436
Bill Elliott	309149.16	238855	70294.16	24,901	12.4151302
Richard Petty	303889.91	238855	65034.91	24,901	12.20392402
Jeff Gordon	301124.40	238855	62269.40	24,901	12.09286358
Kyle Petty	290603.80	238855	51748.80	24,901	11.67036669
Kurt Busch	286049.36	238855	47194.36	24,901	11.48746484
Michael Waltrip	281706.17	238855	42851.17	24,901	11.31304642
Darrell Waltrip	280934.05	238855	42079.05	24,901	11.28203879
Ken Schrader	273088.87	238855	34233.87	24,901	10.96698422
Kyle Busch	271864.37	238855	33009.37	24,901	10.91780932
Dave Marcis	271424.21	238855	32569.21	24,901	10.90013281
Ryan Newman	271312.66	238855	32457.66	24,901	10.89565303
Bobby Labonte	267672.77	238855	28817.77	24,901	10.74947853
Denny Hamlin	266175.70	238855	27320.70	24,901	10.68935802
Shorty Rollins	265550.17	238855	26695.17	24,901	10.66423714
Matt DeMatthews	263042.70	238855	24187.70	24,901	10.5635397
Jimmie Johnson	262876.17	238855	24021.17	24,901	10.55685209
Jeff Burton	259942.48	238855	21087.48	24,901	10.43903775
Marshall Sargent	255054.36	238855	16199.36	24,901	10.24273579
Rusty Wallace	254094.29	238855	15239.29	24,901	10.20418011
Dale Earnhardt	245422.07	238855	6567.07	24,901	9.855912172
Dale Earnhardt Jr.	237694.12	238855	-1160.88	24,901	9.545565158
Dale Jarrett	236300.09	238855	-2554.91	24,901	9.489582185
Shorty York	234957.32	238855	-3897.68	24,901	9.435658126
Joey Logano	225597.57	238855	-13257.43	24,901	9.059779688
Jamie McMurray	219739.70	238855	-19115.31	24,901	8.82453295
Brad Keselowski	216140.26	238855	-22714.74	24,901	8.679983173