Martinsville is one of NASCAR’s oldest venues and has been around since the beginning of stock car racing. It was one of the eight original tracks on the 1949 Strickly Stock Schedule which is now known as the Sprint Cup series. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track on the circuit and arguably the toughest to pass at. The facility was built in 1947 and founded by Henry Clay Earles who began the now famous tradition of handing out grandfather clocks to the race winner in 1964.
Martinsville is a very unique track that started off with a dirt surface until it was paved in 1955. The track now has asphalt straightaways and concrete corners which were implemented in 1976. It has only been repaved once since then which was 2004 after a large chunk of track came up causing major damage to the front of Jeff Gordon’s car. 6,000 people attended the first race held at the paper clip but there were only 750 seats. Now, the historic Virginia track can easily seat 65,000 screaming fans.
Richard Petty has the most wins there at 15 with Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson leading all active drivers with 7 total victories. In recent history, there have been three drivers that stand head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to conquering this tricky short track. They are Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin who will obviously be unable to race this weekend due to the compression fracture in his lower back. There is another Hendrick driver that has shown a lot of speed during recent Martinsville races and he happens to be our points leader…Dale Earnhardt Jr. Here are a few more interesting Martinsville stats:
– There have been 128 NSCS races at Martinsville producing 47 different winners
– Chevrolet has won the last 4 Martinsville races in a row with 4 different drivers and has won 15 of the last 20 events
– Kurt Busch won the 2002 fall race from the 36th starting position, a record that still stands today
– 20 of the 128 races at Martinsville have won from the pole while only 5 races have been won from 21st or worse
– 47 is the largest NSCS field in the tracks history (1958 & 1959) while 15 is the smallest (1949)
– 589 different drivers have raced at Martinsville Speedway in the NSCS series
– Two drivers on the 2013 NSCS entry list have never raced at Martinsville (Danica Patrick & Ricky Stenhouse Jr.)
– Tony Stewart holds the track record at a 19.306 set back in the fall of 2005
– Geoff Bodine holds the record for most poles at the speedway with 9 total
-Petty Enterprises & Hendrick Motorsports have the most wins at Martinsville with 19 each
