We’re back from the West Coast swing and the shortest track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule is the site of the welcome home party this weekend. It will be the 133rd time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series visits the .526 mile paper clip in southern Virginia, and the winner of the STP 500 will go home with one of the most unique and coveted pieces of hardware in the sport – a grandfather clock from the Ridgeway Clock Company.
Martinsville Speedway is one of my favorite tracks because of the combination of the long straightaways, lack of banking, and tight corners all contributing to the intense racing produced each and every race at the paper clip. The progressive banking at Bristol Motor Speedway has produce multiple racing grooves, making Martinsville the lone one-groove short track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Drivers will be fighting for real estate in the bottom of the concrete corners before they hit the asphalt straightaways requiring the correct combination of braking and acceleration a thousand plus times to go home with the grandfather clock on Sunday afternoon.
Not a bad result last week for me on the third weekend of the West Coast tour, with my worst driver finishing 14th. I thought I had the race-winner locked up in Kurt Busch, but the restarts at the end last week bit me as much as they did Busch. My roster last week included Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart. 196 points under the FoxSports Fantasy Auto rules last week put me second in the CNY Race Fans group and 18,201 overall.
Martinsville Picks
The drivers making up my fantasy roster this week boast 25 combined wins and are the only five active drivers on the list of 24 who have multiple wins at Martinsville Speedway. A couple of important statistics to keep in mind this week when making your picks – 95 of the 132 (71.9 percent) NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Martinsville Speedway have been won from a top-10 starting position. However, only seven of the 132 races at Martinsville have been won from a starting position outside the top 10 but both races last season added to that tally. If this year’s races at Martinsville are anywhere close to last year’s events, starting position should not weigh in as heavily as past races at the paper clip.
1. Jeff Gordon – $12,000 – 5/1 odds
Eight wins, 28 top fives, and 35 top 10s is the tale of the tape for Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway. He’s got top 10s in four of his last five races at Martinsville and had a 15 race stretch of starts from April of 2003 through March of 2010 where his worst finish was ninth. Add in the fact he’s racing for the team with the most wins at Martinsville Speedway, Gordon is a solid fantasy play this week.
2. Denny Hamlin – $12,000 – 7/1 odds
The Virginia native was unstoppable at Martinsville over the six-race stretch between March of 2008 and October of 2010, racking up four wins and a runner-up finish during that stretch. Short tracks are Hamlin’s best type of track, averaging a 12th place finish in his career short track starts. He’s third in Driver Rating, Average Running Position, Fastest Laps Run, and Average Green Flag Speed and is in the top five in two other of the loop stats. Besides his fifth place finish in Vegas, the West Coast trip was a rough one for Hamlin, so he’s looking forward to being home this weekend at Martinsville.
3. Jimmie Johnson – $10,600 – 7/2 odds
A must-start this week at Martinsville…not much to say other than eight wins, 18 top fives and 22 top 10s in 26 starts for Six-Time. Plan on scoring some serious bonus points for laps led if you start Johnson this week as he’s led over 100 laps in five of the last six Martinsville races.
4. Kurt Busch – $7,900 – 15/1 odds
Busch beat the starting position odds when he won last year’s spring race at Martinsville Speedway, the second time he’s come from outside the top 20 to win at Martinsville. He took the record for the deepest in the field that a race winner has started (36th) when he won the fall race in 2002. Busch will have to do it again if he’s to win on Sunday, starting 26th, but in leagues offering bonus points for start/finish differential, Busch could prove to be a great asset.
5. Tony Stewart – $6,700 – 40/1
Smoke is a longshot this week, but he has qualified his Code 3 Associates/Mobil 1 Chevrolet sixth this week. Stewart has three wins at Martinsville, and he led 18 laps and finished fourth last fall after his return to the driver seat. Based on his recent history at Martinsville, Smoke is cheap and he’s a longshot this week, but a solid filler if you’re low on cash.
That’s all for this week, so until next time….you stay classy NASCAR Nation!
1st, 9th, 14th, 20th and 35th…Maybe your crystal ball is broken..