Martinsville Speedway is a NASCAR stock vehicle racing short track in Henry County, Ridgeway, Virginia. It is owned by the International Speedway Corporation. At 0.526 miles (847 m) long, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Cup Series.
The track was additionally one of the previously cleared oval tracks in NASCAR, being inherited in 1947 by accomplices H. Earth Earles, Henry Lawrence, and Sam Rice per Virginia House Joint Resolution No. 76 on the passing of H. Mud Earles.
It is additionally the lone race track that has been on the NASCAR circuit from its start in 1948. Alongside this, Martinsville is the solitary NASCAR oval track on the NASCAR track circuit to have asphalt surfaces on the straightaways, and concrete to cover the turns.
The track is frequently alluded to as a paper clip formed and is banked just 12° in the turns. The blend of long straightaways and level, slender transforms makes it hard to slow down going into turns and smooth increasing speed leaving turns an absolute necessity.
The track was cleared in 1955 and in 1956 it facilitated its initial 500-lap race. In 1976, the turns were repaved with concrete. By 2004, the then 28-year-old cement had shown critical wear. On April 18, 2004, an enormous lump of cement got removed from the track's surface and made extreme harm to the assemblage of Jeff Gordon's vehicle.
In response to this, the track was completely repaved with new concrete and black-top.
Until 1999, Martinsville was infamous for having two pit streets. The backstretch pit street was by and large kept away because if a group needed to pit there during an alert, any vehicle pitting on the front stretch had the benefit of pitting first and not holding fast to pace vehicle speed after leaving their pit street.
This was corrected when pit street was reconfigured to stretch out from the passageway of turn 3 to the exit of turn 2.
The main NASCAR event held on July 4, 1948. In 1951, just four vehicles were running toward the completion, the least of any race held at the speedway. In 1960, Richard Petty turned into the youngest victor at Martinsville, at 22 years, 283 days. Petty has the most successes (15).
Location | 340 Speedway Road Ridgeway, Virginia, U.S. 24148 |
Operator | International Speedway Corporation |
Major Events | NASCAR Cup Series Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 Xfinity 500 NASCAR Xfinity Series TBA Draft Top 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series NASCAR Hall of Fame 200 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series ValleyStar Credit Union 300 |
Length | 0.526 mi (0.847 km) |
Most Wins | Richard Petty (15) |
Most Starts | Richard Petty (67) |
Poles | Darrell Waltrip (8) |