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Drivers: Keep Martinsville on Cup schedule
Oct 19, 2008 (The Reidsville Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- RIDGEWAY, Va. -- An all-day rain at Martinsville Speedway on Friday wiped out practice and qualifying, so much of the talk in the media center focused on things other than setups and track conditions.
A recurring question to drivers centered on rumors that the half-mile speedway, the shortest on the Sprint Cup circuit, could lose one of its two annual races, possibly as early as next season.
Kansas Speedway, also owned by International Speedway Corporation, is clamoring for a second race, as is Las
Vegas Motor Speedway. Though the
racing is often less exciting, those intermediate tracks can seat more people than than
Martinsville, which has a capacity of 65,000. Fact is, Martinsville struggles to fill the stands, and the bad economy isn't helping things for a raceway that sits between Greensboro and Roanoke, Va., but otherwise lacks a large population base.
Still, Martinsville, which opened in 1947 with fewer than 1,000 seats, is just one of three short tracks on the circuit.
History, not to mention good racing, should count for something, drivers say. The sport was raised in the South, but the region has seen Rockingham lose both of it races and Darlington lose one of two dates, including its Labor Day event.
It's a question of whether progress will overcome tradition.
"There's going to be change, you just have to accept that," Greg Biffle said. "I think it's bad when a racetrack loses both of its dates. I think it's bad when we leave a racetrack behind. If a racetrack can maintain a date, with being able to expand the sport or our schedule, then at least I think that's acceptable.
"If Darlington lost its other date, or whatever the cases are ...wind up in the same position as Rockingham or something, I don't think it's good for our sport to do that."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. lamented the absence of short tracks in the series. A ticket to Bristol is one of the toughest in the sport, and Richmond typically sells out both events.
"A couple of years back they really latched on to something unique with this track when they ground the bottom groove, and you had a second groove that was actually more preferable," Earnhardt said of Martinsville. "(There was) a lot of side-by-side racing, and even the ability to pass on the second groove."
That second groove went away, he said, when track officials "fixed" the racing surface.
"We're back to getting around the bottom best you can, so this track lacks some of the characteristics ... that would keep it from becoming a Bristol or Richmond. But even with that said, it's still fun to race here, and it's a short track, and it would really be unfortunate for the sport to remove another short track from its series ... because we haven't added a short track race in a long time.
"We haven't seen a new facility built, yet we still see some of the most exciting races of the year at Richmond, and you don't have a problem ever selling out Bristol, where you do at probably 80 percent of the other tracks on the circuit.
"Somebody really needs to kinda wake up a little bit and see what's going on there ... get some more short tracks on this series. Something about this place has a lot of history, but so did Darlington, and it didn't stand the test of time as far as two dates. They'll be a day when this track will probably lose a date, and it's unfortunate."
Denny Hamlin, who grew up around Richmond, Va., missed the type of racing that short tracks provide.
"This is one of last true racing race tracks we have. The racing is always going to be close, because 43 cards fill up a race track here.
"It would be just crazy to take a date from here," Hamlin said. "I don't ever see that happening. But if it does, someone better half another half-mile, three-quarter mile track that we're going to."
Clint Bowyer, a Kansas native, would love to have second race in his home state. Still, he questions a schedule that includes two events near Los Angeles at a track that features sluggish racing and less-than-full stands.
"My own opinion, and I don't want to get in trouble, but look at California. It's a long ways away and we're not filling the grandstands there. This place, it's rich in history, and its part of NASCAR -- it's been a part of it for a long, long time.
"If I had NASCAR for a day, and if were going to pull one away, I'd look at California or doing something different there."
Jeff Burton and his brother, Ward, are South Boston, Va., natives who learned the sport on the local short tracks. Martinsville, Jeff Burton said, "belongs" in the series.
"This track has a huge history, it is entrenched in the history of this area. I understand that's it easy to make an argument that there are bigger cities and bigger towns that we could be near. I understand that argument.
"I do think it's important to embrace our history, to embrace our past, and this is a great way to do that. There's no other track we race on that's like this. As far as I'm concerned, I think we have to have races like this because it reminds us where we come from, and I really think that's important."
Burton said Martinsville is a potential target to lose a date, but he's heard that story before.
"We've been having this conversation for 15 years about losing a race, and it hasn't happened yet," he said. "I haven't gotten too concerned about it because I've been hearing this for so long ... I've been hearing these rumors for as long as I've been doing it, and we still have two races here."
Whatever NASCAR decides, Jeff Gordon made this plea: "Let's build some short tracks."
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