What makes Martinsville special?
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Well, you know what? It is like going back in time. I think that is important. Understand that Martinsville is an historical racetrack that's clearly part of the NASCAR fabric. To prove it, the Virginia Historical Society has just put a historical marker at the track because of how important it is to the history of our sport.
If he were still with us, Martinsville Speedway founder H. Clay Earles would be jumping for joy. So many of the early pioneers of our sport — and I'm not talking about drivers, I'm talking about promoters — had a vision for what this sport could become. Big Bill France surrounded himself with people like Clay.
Now, I don't mean to turn this into a history lesson, but it's just such a big part of growing up in the sport like I did. Clay Earles was a good friend of mine. I used to love to go there even for testing. We used to go out and ride around and feed the geese. He used to tell me stories about coming through Franklin, Tenn., with a load of moonshine. Clay was a character, and the racetrack still reflects his personality today. We just can't walk away from pieces of history like that.
Darlington is another piece of history. Martinsville is the oldest race track we have. The first NASCAR-sanctioned event there was in 1949. It's part of our sport that we need to honor, recognize and preserve. In my time, we called Martinsville the "Daytona of short tracks." It paid more money to win Martinsville than it did the majority of the superspeedways. Back in the day, Martinsville paid $50,000 to win. I don't think there was but one or two other places we raced that paid more than that in a year.
That's not all, though. Let's talk about trophies. You hear folks always talk about the guitar you get at Nashville, but there is no trophy more cherished than the grandfather clock you get for winning at Martinsville. It's a unique trophy from a unique track. Everybody wants one.
That's why it was so important to go there and run well. It was a good money race to run and it was also a prestigious race to win. Five-hundred laps at Martinsville is an incredible test of endurance and durability. Brake companies used to pull their hair out. Tire companies had all kinds of nightmares there. The track was just so mean.
Prior to 1976, every time we would go there we would tear the track up. As the brakes got better and the tires got better and the cars got faster, we would literally dig the turns up. Being a forward thinker that Clay was, he decided to concrete the turns and that would take care of the problem. So in 1976 we pulled into the racetrack and the straightaways were asphalt and the turns were concrete. We all said the man had lost his mind. You can't race on concrete.
Well, today we know the man hadn't lost his mind. It was again forward thinking on his part. It fixed the problem, and you very rarely hear anymore complaints about the concrete turns at Martinsville. It does create challenges, I'll grant you that. That's the way Clay looked at things: Fix the problem and it will make the racing better.
He was just one of many great promoters back in the day. You think about Enoch Staley at North Wilkesboro, L.G. DeWitt at Rockingham, Barney Wallace at Darlington, Paul Sawyer at Richmond, Larry Carrier at Bristol, the Mattiolis in the Poconos and the Bahre family in New Hampshire — these are the people that were around that Bill France trusted and relied on. They literally helped grow the sport where it is today. You simply can't walk away from all their contributions to our sport.
Martinsville is an important piece of the NASCAR puzzle and an integral part of its history. We should never, ever think about leaving there. We need to put the Southern 500 back at Darlington Raceway too, because that's what Darlington was known for. Five-hundred miles at Darlington on Labor Day weekend was special. Those are significant pieces of our history that we should improve, cherish and hang on to.
I've said this before: Martinsville is like racing in a sea of people. When they drop that green flag, it was like you could reach out and touch the fans. They are a part of the race — they are that close. The fans are apart of the action there. The cars sound different because they are so close. The racing is good. It always has been.
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Martinsville is a contact track. You know when you go there that you are going to be beat and bang, shove and get knocked out of the way. I always felt that at Martinsville, you get what you give. If you weren't willing to compromise, give and take, well, you were going to get stuffed in one of those walls over there. Trust me, it's pretty easy to do. I always tried to remember that.
It's a tough place to race. Tight corners, a tight pit road, a tight racetrack — it's just so intense. You go down those long straight-aways into those tight corners, stop quickly, make a U-turn and go back the other way.
When you walk into the joint, you say, "Well, this is just a little bitty place and it can't be that tough to race here." I guarantee you that some of these rookies that have never been there before will tell you it's a lot harder than it looks. That's the way Martinsville has always been — a lot harder than it looks. It takes a lot of finesse. You have to be good on the gas, but also good on the brakes. You've got to be really smooth on the wheel. You can't juke a car at that place. I always tell people it's like driving with an egg under the accelerator. That's how you race at Martinsville.
Oh, by the way
Most fans, especially the new ones, always want to talk about the red hot dogs when you talk about Martinsville. I just always figured hot dogs were hot dogs. Some tracks had better hot dogs than others. All we carried in the cooler was slick meat — bologna, ham, turkey — anything you could get sliced up at a grocery.
But you want an experience — to sit on the back of a tow truck in the infield at Martinsville, talking to Leonard Wood while eating Beanie Weenies, Vienna Sausages and a pack of crackers while you are drinking a Mountain Dew — now that's real eating right there. That's were you learned a good lesson on the philosophy of racing and what a good crew chief like Leonard Wood thought about Martinsville or Daytona or Charlotte.
That was the real NASCAR 101 right there.
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