MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY

'Martinsville Speedway' is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Martinsville, Virginia. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved "superspeedways" in NASCAR, being built in 1947 by H. Clay Earles. The track is often referred to as paper clip-shaped and is banked only 12° in the turns. The combination of long straightaways and flat, narrow turns makes hard braking going into turns and smooth acceleration exiting turns a must.
The track ownership was a joint venture of brothers Jim and Bill France, Jr., and H. Clay Earles, the majority owner, along with daughters Dorothy Campbell and Mary Weatherford, and Dorothy Campbell's children, Sarah Fain and Clay Campbell.
The track was sold exclusively to the France family for $192 million in 2004 as a result of an estate sale following the death of Weatherford.
Plans existed to add an additional 20,000 seats along the back stretch, boosting capacity to over 85,000 seats, but nothing more has been officially mentioned regarding this by track management since the sale of the track to ISC.
Currently, Martinsville hosts two Nextel Cup races - the Goody's Cool Orange 500 in April and the Subway 500 (round six of the Chase for the Cup) in October - along with Craftsman Truck Series, Whelen Modified Tour which is labor day weekend under the lights, and Late Model races.
From 1982 until 1994, and again in a one-off in 2006, the speedway hosted Busch Series events. This occurred first with 200- and 150-lap features (200 laps for the two races with Whelen Modifieds, 150 laps with the September Winston/Nextel Cup race), then 300 laps from 1992 until 1994 as part of a Late Model/Busch Series doubleheader, and 250 laps in the one-off in 2006. The venue was dropped from the Busch Series schedule for 2007 and a race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal will be run on the open date.

Contents

Current Events

Records

Past races

(races officially sanctioned by NASCAR) ★ 1952 Tex Keene ★ 1953 Wayne Alspaugh

External links

Current Events

★ NASCAR Nextel Cup - Goody's Cool Orange 500

★ NASCAR Nextel Cup - Subway 500

★ NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series - Kroger 250

★ NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series - Kroger 200

★ NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and Whelen Southern Modified Tour Combination Race -- Whelen Made in America 300 (1 50-lap last chance race, 250-lap feature)

Records

★ NASCAR Nextel Cup Qualifying: Tony Stewart, 19.306 sec. (98.084 mph), 2005

★ NASCAR Nextel Cup Race: Jeff Gordon, 3 hrs. 11 min. 54 sec. (82.223 mph), September 22, 1996

★ NASCAR Busch Series Qualifying: Clint Bowyer, 19.735 sec. (95.951 mph), 2006

★ NASCAR Busch Series Race: Jack Ingram, 1 hr. 42 min. 16 sec. (77.751 mph), March 25, 1984 (250 laps)

★ NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: Mike Skinner, 19.728 sec. (95.985 mph), 2007

★ NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race: Rich Bickle, 1 hr. 47 min. 18 sec. (75.296 mph), September 27, 1997

★ NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Qualifying: Greg Sacks, 18.746 sec. (101.014 mph), 1986.

★ NASCAR Combined Modified Race: Ted Christopher, 55.773 mph, 2005 (combination races only with 250-lap format)

Past races

===AAA Championship Car history=

(races officially sanctioned by NASCAR)

★ 1952 Tex Keene

★ 1953 Wayne Alspaugh

Trivia==

★ Winners of Martinsville's Nextel Cup and Whelen Modified Tour events receive a longcase clock as a trophy, a nod to Martinsville's famous furniture industry.

★ While watching a NASCAR race, one can see a Norfolk Southern train running along the tracks outside the speedway, although the tracks were recently moved back 100 feet.

★ After a crashing in the Martinsville fall race in 2001, Kevin Lepage said, "racing at Martinsville is not an anger management seminar; in fact it would do you good to attend one of those before a race."

★ In the 2001 Old Dominion 500, Bobby Hamilton had the race well in hand until the closing laps until he fell to 13th after being spun by rookie Kevin Harvick, who was penalized a lap for rough driving. After the race Hamilton said, "He [Harvick] may be driving Dale Earnhardt's car but he isn't Dale Earnhardt; right now he wouldn't be a scab on Earnhardt's butt."

★ Harry Gant won the 1991 Goody's 500 after being spun out and even though Gant's car was damaged, he was able to overtake the field to win. This started a three-race winning streak for Gant.

★ Junior Johnson won nine races as a team owner at Martinsville with Darrell Waltrip (seven times) and Geoff Bodine (twice).

★ Martinsville was the site of Rick Hendrick's first NASCAR Winston Cup win in 1984 with Geoff Bodine.

★ During most of the time track founder H. Clay Earles was alive, only one brand of candy bar was sold at Martinsville Speedway, the 5th Avenue candy bar, which was Earles' favorite.

External links

★ Martinsville Speedway Official Site

★ Martinsville Speedway Page on NASCAR.com