Goody's Cool Orange 500 Race Preview

Martinsville Speedway -- 03/30/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Wednesday Mar 26 2008 10:13am

After taking last weekend off, the Sprint Cup series now heads to Martinsville Speedway, the Virginia racetrack with the self-described "paperclip" shape. The distance around the oval is just over half a mile (0.526 miles to be exact), making Martinsville one of the most exciting short tracks on the NASCAR schedule. Banking here is 12 degrees in the corners with flat straightaways.

Stock-car racing at Martinsville is as old as NASCAR itself, dating back to 1949 and a race won by Red Byron. The series has been visiting the historic track twice a year ever since.

It's usually not hard to find enthusiastic comments from drivers who have a fondness for a particular track - usually because its one they perform well at and that suits their personal driving style.

But it can be instructive - and humorous - to find out what a driver who doesn't like a given track has to say about it.

In the case of Martinsville, one such driver is Matt Kenseth (+1585), whose crew chief Chip Bolin describes the track as a "very, very painful place for team 17." Said Kenseth, "Martinsville is a track I usually dread racing at. To me, and I've said this a lot, Martinsville reminds me of racing around two light poles in some mall parking lot. There's very little room to race, it's slow and just real tight quarters - there's nothing fun about that to me."

Probably not music to the ears of the Martinsville PR Department, but fortunately, not all drivers hold the track in such disdain.

Bobby Labonte (+2285), who has victories in all three of NASCAR's top series at Martinsville, said, "I'm excited to get to Martinsville this weekend because I've liked that place since the first time I got on the track. That's just the way some racetracks are. It's not one thing about them that you can really put your finger on. You just have a good feel for them right out of the box."

Prior to taking the Easter weekend off, the Sprint Cup series raced at Bristol, making Martinsville the second short-track race in a row for the Cup teams.

While some pundits feel that drivers who did well at Bristol will also succeed at Martinsville, Ryan Newman (+1685) points out that there are both similarities and differences between the two venues: "Martinsville is a good bit different that Bristol, but you kind of have to race it the same. It's 500 laps. It's a place where you have to be patient. The brake pedal is as important as the gas pedal there, and you don't want to get a lap down. The banking and all the loads on the driver (are) a lot less at Martinsville than at Bristol, so it is a lot easier to drive, as long as you have a fast car."

Speaking of success at Martinsville, you can't discuss this track without thinking foremost of Hendrick Motorsports. Jimmie Johnson (+475) has won the last three races here including the sweep in 2007, and has combined with teammate Jeff Gordon (+525) to give Hendrick the victory in 8 of the last 10 Martinsville races. In fact, the only drivers other than Gordon or Johnson to win a race here in the past five years are Rusty Wallace in April of 2004 and Tony Stewart in April of 2006. Wallace in a Dodge was the only non-GM driver to post a victory here during that time period.

Not surprisingly, Johnson and Gordon lead all active drivers in the average finish category at Martinsville, Johnson at 6.2 and Gordon at 7.2. And Johnson's accomplishments don't end there. After a 35th-place finish in his first race here in 2002, he's posted 11 straight top-10 finishes including four wins, a second, and two thirds.

Still, as we've seen so far this season, there seems to be greater parity among the leading teams in 2008 than there has been in the past year or two, and the Hendrick dominance of last season is not nearly as strong so far this year. Similarly, while there's no denying that Chevy drivers have ruled Martinsville in recent years, Tony Stewart (+785), Denny Hamlin (+865), and Kyle Busch (+715) all have respectable records here, but of course are now with Toyota. Stewart has an average finish of 12.3 with two wins, and Hamlin and Busch each have four top-10s, Hamlin in five starts and Busch in six.

In terms of total points earned at Martinsville over the last five races, the leading drivers (not surprisingly) are Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, and Denny Hamlin.

Jeff Gordon has the most victories overall at Martinsville with seven, followed by Johnson with four, and Mark Martin and Tony Stewart each with two. Single race winners include Jeff Burton, Bobby Labonte, and Kurt Busch (+1685).

In the long run, handling is always an important factor at Martinsville and, with passing at a premium, track position and the ability to find the right balance will be equally important. As Jeff Gordon explains, "You can't overdrive the corners here and you must be smooth on the gas. If you drive the corner too easy and you don't get in the gas hard enough off the corners, you're not going to be fast. Every time I come here it takes me about eight or 10 laps to find that rhythm again. The first couple of laps here during a race weekend, I tend to overdrive the car. I have to tell myself, 'slow it down, slow it down.' Then, boom, the lap times start falling. It's a fine line to find the balance to go fast here."

Perhaps drivers need to start practicing that old adage now -- sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.