1983–1990 In 1983, Marlin was hired by
Roger Hamby to drive his No. 17 Hesco Exhaust-sponsored
Chevrolet. He posted a tenth-place finish at
Dover International Speedway and finished nineteenth in the standings, clinching the Rookie of the Year award. Despite finishing fifteenth in the
1984 Daytona 500 for Hamby, Marlin spent most of the season running for Sadler Brothers Racing, posting two top-ten finishes. He also competed in one race for
Jimmy Means and Dick Bahre respectively. Marlin only made eight starts in 1985, seven of them coming for Sadler, his best finish being twelfth at
Talladega Superspeedway. He ended his season at
Charlotte Motor Speedway in the
Miller High Life 500, driving the Helen Rae Special. He finished 29th, after suffering flywheel failure. Marlin moved over to the No. 1
Bull's Eye Barbecue Sauce-sponsored car owned by
Hoss Ellington in 1986. His best finish that season came at the
Firecracker 400, where he finished second. Marlin got a full-time ride in 1987, when he was hired by
Billy Hagan to drive the No. 44
Piedmont Airlines-sponsored
Oldsmobile. He had four top-fives and finished eleventh in points. The following season, he had seven finishes of eighth or better in the first ten races and finished tenth in the standings. In 1989, the team received sponsorship from
Sunoco and switched to the number 94. He tied a career-best thirteen top-ten finishes but dropped to twelfth in the final standings. He left the team at the end of the 1990 season. During the 1990 season, he won his first career
Busch Series race at Charlotte, driving the No. 48
Diamond Ridge-sponsored Chevrolet owned by Fred Turner.
1991–1997 Marlin signed to drive the No. 22
Maxwell House-sponsored
Ford Thunderbird for
Junior Johnson in 1991. He had a second-place finish at Daytona to start the season and won two poles at
Talladega Superspeedway and the Firecracker 400, and had a total of seven top-fives and sixteen top tens, finishing sevenh in the standings. The next season, he had six top-fives, thirteen top-tens and five poles, finishing 10th in the standings. Marlin departed to drive the No. 8
Raybestos-sponsored Ford for
Stavola Brothers Racing. In 1993, he had just one top-five and eight top-tens and fell to fifteenth in the standings. Marlin's first career win came in his 279th career start at the
1994 Daytona 500 driving for
Morgan-McClure Motorsports in the No. 4
Kodak-sponsored Chevrolet, the most starts for a driver before his first win before
Michael Waltrip's win at the
2001 Daytona 500. In 1994, he had one win, five top-fives and eleven top-tens, and rose slightly to 14th in the standings. He went on to win the 500 again in the following year, becoming only one of five drivers to win consecutive Daytona 500s. The other four men that have accomplished that feat were
Richard Petty,
Cale Yarborough,
Denny Hamlin, and
William Byron. He also became the only driver to have his first two career wins at the Daytona 500. Marlin won two more times during the 1995 season (at Darlington and Talladega) for a total of three wins, nine top-fives, 22 top-tens, 472 laps led, an average finish of 9.84, and ranking a career best third in the standings. In 1996, Marlin had two wins, five top-fives, ten top tens, and finished eighth in the standings. In 1997, he scored just two top-fives and six top-tens, and dropped to 25th in the standings, leaving the No. 4 team at year's end.
1998–2006 In 1998, he joined
SABCO Racing to drive the No. 40
Coors Light-sponsored Chevrolet. He opened the season by winning the
Gatorade 125, a qualifying race for the Daytona 500 but three weeks later, he failed to qualify for the
Primestar 500, the first race he had missed since 1986. He finished in the top-ten six times and had a 13th-place points finish. In 1999, he won his first pole since 1995 at
Pocono Raceway, but dropped down to sixteenth in the standings. In 2000, he won his second career Busch Series race, driving SABCO's No. 82 entry at
Bristol Motor Speedway. During the season, he lost teammate
Kenny Irwin Jr. in a fatal practice crash at
New Hampshire International Speedway. After finishing in the top-ten seven times, he fell back to nineteenth in the overall standings. at
Dover Motor Speedway in 2001. In
2001, SABCO's majority ownership stake was purchased by
CART &
IndyCar championship owner
Chip Ganassi and the team switched to
Dodge Intrepids. In his first race with the new team, Marlin won the Gatorade 125 qualifying race at Daytona. Three days later at the Daytona 500, on the final lap, Marlin's car made contact with
Dale Earnhardt's rear bumper in turn 4, causing Earnhardt to
crash into the turn 4 wall, an impact that would kill him instantly. In the following days after the race, Marlin and his family received
hate mail and death threats from angry fans of Earnhardt as well as the sport in general who felt that Marlin was responsible for Earnhardt's death. He was eventually publicly defended by two of Earnhardt's drivers,
his son and race winner
Michael Waltrip, and was also cleared of any wrongdoing by NASCAR's investigation into the accident. He won Dodge's first race in its return to NASCAR at
Michigan International Speedway, as well as winning the
UAW-GM Quality 500 at Charlotte. He tied his career best points finish of third that season. In 2002, Marlin had a strong car at the
Daytona 500, and towards the end was battling
Jeff Gordon for the lead when they made contact, sending Gordon spinning. NASCAR had then red-flagged the race so it would not finish under caution, and stopped the field momentarily on the backstretch. Concerned about a damaged right front fender, Marlin jumped out of his car and started pulling the fender away from the tire. As working on the car is prohibited during red flag conditions under NASCAR regulations, Marlin was sent to the tail end of the field for the restart. Marlin would finish in eighth. The following week, Marlin finished second in Rockingham to
Matt Kenseth. Marlin took the points lead and did not let it go for the following 24 weeks. For most of that time he held a comfortable lead, which reached triple digits several times. Marlin followed this 2nd-place finish with a win at the
UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but not without controversy: During the race, Marlin spun while making late race pit stop, causing him to break the pit road speed limit. NASCAR's penalty for being too fast entering pit road was to hold the car in its pit stall for an additional fifteen seconds, but the official at Marlin's pit stall was not informed of the penalty until
after the crew had released the car. NASCAR determined that they had no precedent for forcing Marlin to return to the pits as his early release was their mistake (and they could not order him to return for a stop and go penalty). Following the incident, NASCAR changed the rule so that all speeding violations are enforced with a drive through penalty (forcing the driver to travel the length of pit road at the speed limit). After this win, Marlin finished 9th the following week at Atlanta. The week after that, he won the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at
Darlington Raceway, which would be the final win of his Cup career. at the 2006 spring Bristol race. With a series of strong finishes (seventh at Texas, fifth at Talladega, seventh at California, fourth in June at Pocono, third at Daytona, third at the second Pocono race, sixth at Michigan in August, seventh at Bristol, and fourth at Darlington in the fall), Marlin was still 91 points ahead of second place entering the
Chevy Monte Carlo 400 in September. However, Marlin finished that race in last place after an early accident and saw his points lead all but evaporate as
Mark Martin, who had entered the race 125 points behind Marlin, gained 116 points and moved into second place in the points as Marlin's lead shrunk to nine points (
Jeff Gordon, who had leapfrogged Martin for second place in the standings with a win the week before, also gained on Marlin but dropped to fourth due to the strong finishes from both Martin and
Jimmie Johnson, who gained 95 points on Marlin to move into third). At the
New Hampshire 300 the next week Marlin lost the points lead as Martin finished four places ahead of him, gaining fifteen points. He was diagnosed with a cracked vertebra in his neck and would be forced to miss the remaining seven races. Marlin was replaced by Busch Series driver
Jamie McMurray, who had recently been signed by Chip Ganassi Racing to drive for the team in the 2003 season. McMurray won the
UAW-GM Quality 500 in his second start with Marlin's car, and Marlin telephoned McMurray during the post-race festivities to congratulate him. Marlin ultimately finished 18th in the final season points with eight top-fives and ten top-tens. Marlin's injury was the beginning of a struggle for Chip Ganassi Racing to win races on a regular basis - a slump that would last from 2002 towards 2010. Marlin did not finish in the top-five in 2003, but had eleven top-ten finishes and matched his previous year's finish of eighteenth in points. He did however come close to a win at the 2003 Sharpie 500 at his hometown in Bristol Tennessee. Marlin controlled the race early and mid-way and appeared to have victory in his hands until he was wrecked by
Kurt Busch with less than 150 laps to go.
Kurt Busch went on to win the race but apologized in victory lane. Marlin however was not pleased with Busch in post-race ceremonies, stating "What a bone-headed move. I guess Spencer didn't punch him hard enough.", as a reference to Busch and Jimmy Spencer's altercation the previous week. Busch would later say in a post-race interview, and later in a 2020 podcast with
Dale Earnhardt Jr. that he offered to buy Marlin a six-pack of Coors as a peace offering, but was turned down. Despite three top-fives in
2004, he fell to 21st in points. During the
2005 season, Ganassi announced Marlin would be replaced by
David Stremme for the
2006 season in order to attract the younger male demographic. It was also said that
Richard Childress Racing had offered Marlin a deal to drive the No. 07 Jack Daniels-sponsored Chevrolet, However, Marlin honored his contract with Ganassi and finished out the 2005 season. He did however miss one race-the 2005
Sirius at the Glen to attend the funeral of his father
Coo Coo Marlin who died of lung cancer one day before the race. Road ringer
Scott Pruett replaced Sterling in the No. 40 and finished fourth in the race. He reached as high as sixth in the points standings, but would later fall to thirtieth in the final standings. Marlin joined
MB2 Motorsports for 2006 to drive the
Waste Management Chevy, running with the No. 14 in tribute to his father,
Coo Coo Marlin, who died during the 2005 season. Marlin's only top-ten finish in 2006 was ninth place at Richmond. His 2006 season was shadowed by bad luck and No. 14 finished 36th in owner points.
2007–2010 Marlin was able to qualify via speed for each of the first five races of the 2007 season, his
Pep Boys No. 14 team was the only team out of the top-35 from 2006 to do this. Marlin's run in the No. 14 ended on July 17, 2007, when Ginn Racing announced
Regan Smith, who had been splitting time with
Mark Martin in Ginn's
U.S. Army-sponsored No. 01 car, would replace him beginning at the
Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis. He attempted to qualify for two races in 2007, but he failed to qualify for either. He tried to make the
Sharpie 500 at Bristol in the No. 78 car as a replacement for
Kenny Wallace, and the
UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega, replacing
Mike Wallace in the No. 09 car. However, in November he managed to qualify the No. 09 and drove at Phoenix for a 25th place finish, and a week later at Homestead finishing 33rd. Marlin failed to qualify for the 2008 Daytona 500 in the No. 09 car, but qualified at Talladega and the following week at Richmond as well. For Darlington, Marlin raced in his old No. 40 car and qualified 14th, and also at the Coca-Cola 600 at
Lowe's Motor Speedway in the No. 40, still in for the injured
Dario Franchitti. He finished out the rest of the season driving for
Phoenix Racing. In March 2009, Marlin participated in and won the Saturday Night Special, a charity event at Bristol Motor Speedway which included NASCAR Legends. He led the entire event in a car painted similar to the one he drove with
Morgan McClure Motorsports, and wearing an older-style Coors Light uniform from his days while driving for Chip Ganassi. For the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Marlin continued to run a limited schedule in the No. 09 Phoenix Racing Miccosukee Resort & Gaming Chevrolet. His best finish for the 2009 season was 35th at Martinsville, which also proved the last of his 748 career starts. An announcement was made preceding the Cup Series finale weekend at
Homestead-Miami Speedway that Marlin would attempt the race in the No. 70 Chevrolet for
TRG Motorsports, though Marlin later denied it. ==Retirement==