NASCAR Cup Round 6: Goody's Fast Relief 500 - Martinsville Speedway

[fieldodreams79]

Paperclip racing on a course built in the 1940s that has been raced on since NASCAR's inception. If it ain't broke....

JAYSKI

Green Flag Sunday @ 113 pm EST

Points after Cali:

Place Driver Pts to L Pts to Nxt

1 Greg Biffle 195 0 0

2 Kevin Harvick 188 -7 -7

3 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 178 -17 -10

4 Tony Stewart 177 -18 -1

5 Martin Truex Jr. 175 -20 -2

6 Matt Kenseth 173 -22 -2

7 Denny Hamlin 171 -24 -2

8 Clint Bowyer 157 -38 -14

9 Jimmie Johnson 156 -39 -1

10 Ryan Newman 0 155 -40 -1

From Jayski Points Page

[rustyfan]

Great battle between Gordon and Johnson for the win, rubbin' fenders and banging a bit on each other - and then the caution comes out! Oh yeah and they're low on fuel, all the top runners.

Could be a crazy GWC...

Edit - And now everyone except Gordon and Johnson pitted.

[rustyfan]

Bowyer divebombed Gordon and Johnson, sending both spinning - then got tagged himself. Caution out again and we're gonna have a GWC attempt #2.

This more than makes up for Bristol

[rustyfan]

GWC attempt #2, here we go! Newman leads ahead of Allmendinger, Earnhardt Jr. and Keselowski.

[rustyfan]

Ryan Newman wins ahead of A.J. Allmendinger and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Great finish to an otherwise somewhat pretty calm race at Martinsville.

[Paradise City]

Poor Hendrick. I didn't think they'd surrender their lock-out of the race like that. A competitive Earnhardt kept up Hendrick colours in 3rd. Crafty win for Newman. Great ending.

[kurski]

Originally Posted by rustyfan

Ryan Newman wins ahead of A.J. Allmendinger and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Great finish to an otherwise somewhat pretty calm race at Martinsville.

Good win Newman, but frankly, I was ****ed off when AJ is no winning Sprint Cup race

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Have yet to see a boring Cup race at Martinsville, please NASCAR/ISC don't change the track configuration.

[fieldodreams79]

I think it is no secret that I don't like JJ or Jeffie G, but Reutimann needs a good ass whoppin' and something other than a Lloyd Christmas haircut. It was is shaping up to be a great finish but then we get the BS g w c because some idiot can't find pit lane.

At least it was more entertaining than half of the first 5 races.

Good for Newman getting a clock.

[fieldodreams79]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

Have yet to see a boring Cup race at Martinsville, please NASCAR/ISC don't change the track configuration.

No kidding. I don't think anyone in their right mind would change anything about M'ville. Hell, they even had a railroad company move their line so they could squeeze in some more "motorcoaches".

Indeed, a great track and always a good show, even when some bowl haircut fool gets lost on a half mile paperclip.

[Catingaround]

Martinsville is probably my favorite nascar oval. If you're going to see one nascar race in person make it Martinsville. If you do get there be sure to do the general admission for practices and the truck race, get down close to the action and bring some ear plugs

[The Original Instag8or]

NASCAR needs more Martinsvilles, as well as Bristols (both new and old) but way less CaliKanVegaTuckyCagos. And I know that somebody likes Pocono (most likely because it is their nearest track) but being where it is (in an apparent subtropical rain forest) that track needs to be reconfigured, preferably much smaller and more steeply banked, like Old Bristol perhaps, as that track dried real quickly, even after a monsoon. Then go reconfigure the Fontana or Chicago track into current Pocono, if for no other reason than appease fans of triangles.

[Purist]

Pocono was designed for open-wheelers back at the end of the '60s. The original oval was a flat, 0.75-mile affair. I'm nowhere near Pocono, but I do like it. There's plenty of racing room there, and two of the straights offer very good slipstreaming (drafting). Also, it's a large oval where the drivers really actually have to get out of the throttle (to the point where they have to shift gears).

As for the rain thing, I think the water table is high enough, steep banking would often be pointless. The earth banking that the pavement is laid on would soak up so much water, you'd still have lots of problems with "weepers" (water seeping through the pavement, which is inherently porous stuff), and making the racing surface wet long after the rain has stopped on a relatively frequent basis. BTW, Texas has had "weeper" problems, even with its fairly high banking and much drier climate around Dallas/Ft. Worth.

They won't raise the banking at Pocono, especially with the owner looking at having Indy Cars coming back there.

[The Original Instag8or]

Texas' early weepers were caused by poor drainage design that has since been fixed. As for a Bristol style track in Pocono: living here in the wet and rainy Pacific Northwest of the US, I have seen lots of rain outs, but tracks with steeper banking tend to have less of them due to the self-draining nature of the banking. Where water puddles all the way across flat pavement, it runs downhill to the infield of steeper banked tracks. And IMO, a smaller track just takes less time to dry due to less pavement to get wet in the first place...

So if Pocono had a steep banked half mile, instead of a 2-3 hour dry time, it could very well have an old Bristol 30 minute dry time. And since it is wet there, and nobody races on wet ovals, my opinion remains that the current huge flat Pocono track, while unique in design, is probably the worst possible track layout for the wet climate of its location.

[Purist]

If you pave virtually the entire area of one of those 1.5-milers, you're going to have drainage difficulties no matter what you do. For starters, you've created a massive, asphalt bowl.

Even so, another Pocono isn't going to be built in this day and age, so if we're going to have one going forward, it's going to be the one we already have. Since another one just isn't going to be built now, I'm going to be ****ED if they mess with Pocono itself.

Anyway, I can only tolerate so many short tracks. For me, they offer little more value than just the novelty of having that added type of track a few times on the calendar. Also, the people close to me that I can really talk racing with have an old school road racing attitude about any on-track contact, and they won't here any excuses from me about it. So, it's better not even mentioning the short track races to them at all (at least the ones at Bristol and Martinsville).

They ought to have a few "flat" tracks of 1.0-1.5 miles around. If the present cars don't make for the best racing on those, fix the cars so that they do.