MARTINSVILLE 2
Friday, November 1 — NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 6 p.m. ET (FS1)
Saturday, November 2 — NASCAR Xfinity Series, 4 p.m. ET (CW)
Sunday, November 3 — NASCAR Cup Series, 2 p.m. ET (NBC)
NASCAR will set the Championship 4 in all three national series this weekend when Martinsville Speedway hosts its second event of the 2024 season. This will mark the fifth straight season that the half-mile paperclip serves as the penultimate race and begins with Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series event. The Xfinity and Cup finalists will be decided on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
LOGANO GEARING UP FOR CHAMPIONSHIP 4
Joey Logano has already locked up his spot in the Championship 4 after winning at Las Vegas two weeks ago. This will mark his sixth time in the Championship 4 with all of those appearances coming in even years (2014, ‘16, ‘18, ‘20, ‘22 and ‘24). The two-time Cup Series champion will look to become the 10th driver to win at least three titles and join the likes of three-time winners Tony Stewart, Cale Yarborough, Darrell Waltrip, David Pearson and Lee Petty; four-time champion Jeff Gordon; and seven-time titleholders Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty.
BLANEY CONTINUES ROUND OF 8 BATTLE
After last weekend’s near miss, Ryan Blaney comes into Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway in seventh-place in the playoff standings, 38 points below the cut line. And while his deficit may seem large, he’s likely one of the favorite to win this weekend and repeat his victory from a year ago. That’s because Martinsville has undoubtedly been one of Blaney’s best tracks. This will mark his 18th career start at the track and thanks to his nine top-five and 11 top-10 finishes, his average finish is a sparkling 8.8, which is his best among tracks where he has at least 10 starts.
LOGANO LIKES MARTINSVILLE
No track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit has been better for Joey Logano when it comes to qualifying than Martinsville Speedway. Logano enters this weekend with an average starting position of 8.3, which is his second among all tracks in which he has more than 10 starts (Las Vegas is 7.9 in 23 starts). In 31 career races at the half-mile short track, Logano has one win, 11 top-5 and 19 top-10 finishes, giving him an average finishing position of 10.8. The figure ranks as his third-best track (10 or more races) with only Las Vegas (9.5) and Richmond (10.0) being better.
RYAN BLANEY: “Martinsville is a track I love. I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid. I grew up a little bit south of there and went there a lot as a child and watched my dad race and watched a lot of these great racers run around that place and I’ve always wanted to win there and get a grandfather clock and we were able to put it all together last year. That race, to me, is kind of like Vegas. I feel like we’ve had a couple slip away from us. I feel like we should have two or three grandfather clocks, but sometimes things just don’t work out for you, so it was nice to go into that race last year – even though we were sitting fairly good on points we didn’t care about that, we just wanted to go win the race. Being able to put together kind of the dominating day that we did, especially the last two-thirds of that race was a huge statement and it put us in a really great head space going into Phoenix and we were able to perform there. I love that place to my core. A lot of special reasons behind it off track and on track, so hopefully we can get another grandfather clock. That would be pretty special.”
JOEY LOGANO: “Martinsville is probably the perfect place for being an elimination race. I know NASCAR thinks about this stuff when they put the schedule together and they look at Martinsivlle and think, ‘Everyone is gonna be really close to each other. There’s gonna be full contact. A lot of things can happen.’ You look at all the cutoff races that we have. Bristol, cars are all over each other. The Roval, the tightest road course we go to and the cars are all over each other. Martinsville it’s the same thing, so you’ve got to expect drama when you go there. Some people will be in do-or-die scenarios and what are they willing to do?”
BLANEY GOING FOR MARTINSVILLE REPEAT
Ryan Blaney would like nothing better than a repeat of a year ago when he won the Martinsville playoff race and clinched a spot in the Championship 4. Blaney, who passed Aric Almirola with 22 laps to go, came into the race with a 10-point cushion and promptly extended that by finished second in Stage 1 and winning Stage 2. In all, Blaney led four times for 145 laps in winning for the third time, which matched his career-best for a single season.
CUSTER ON THE BUBBLE AGAIN
For the second straight year, Cole Custer finds himself on the bubble heading into the final race in the Round of 8 at Martinsville Speedway. This time, he’s sitting fourth in the standings, 28 points ahead of fifth-place Chandler Smith and only seven behind third-place Justin Allgaier. A year ago, Custer was third overall, but was only three points above the cut line. He eventually went on to advance to the Championship 4 and win his first title one week later at Phoenix Raceway. This will be his fourth career series start at Martinsville, where he finished eighth earlier this year. He also made six NASCAR Cup Series starts, but never finished better than 13th.
MAJESKI GOING FOR SECOND CAREER CHAMPIONSHIP 4 BERTH
After a solid runner-up finish last weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Ty Majeski comes into Martinsville holding down the fourth and final transfer position in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoff standings. Majeski, advanced to the Championship 4 for the first time in 2022, is 22 points above the cut line and 16 points behind third-place Christian Eckes. The Wisconsin native sat on the pole earlier this year at Martinsville and finished a career-best second in only his third series start.
FORD NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS
AT MARTINSVILLE
1961 – Fred Lorenzen (1)
1962 – Nelson Stacy (2)
1963 – Fred Lorenzen (2)
1964 – Fred Lorenzen (Sweep)
1965 – Fred Lorenzen and Junior Johnson
1966 – Fred Lorenzen (2)
1969 – Richard Petty (Sweep)
1986 – Ricky Rudd (1)
1990 – Geoffrey Bodine (Sweep)
1992 – Mark Martin and Geoffrey Bodine
1993 – Ernie Irvan (2)
1994 – Rusty Wallace (Sweep)
1995 – Rusty Wallace (1)
1996 – Rusty Wallace (1)
1997 – Jeff Burton (1)
1998 – Ricky Rudd (2)
2000 – Mark Martin (1)
2001 – Dale Jarrett and Ricky Craven
2002 – Kurt Busch (2)
2017 – Brad Keselowski (1)
2018 – Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano
2019 – Brad Keselowski (1)
2023 – Ryan Blaney (2)
FORD NASCAR Xfinity Series WINNERS
AT MARTINSVILLE
1994 – Kenny Wallace
FORD NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES WINNERS AT MARTINSVILLE
1995 – Joe Ruttman
2003 – Jon Wood (2)
2004 – Rick Crawford (1)
2005 – Ricky Craven (2)
2015 – Joey Logano (1)
2020 – Grant Enfinger
