Martinsville Speedway’s position as the first race in the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup has the track’s most successful drivers understanding the importance of the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500. #24-Jeff Gordon and #48-Jimmie Johnson, who lead all active drivers with eight Martinsville wins apiece, spent the past two days testing at the iconic half-mile speedway. The two were joined by their Hendrick Motorsports teammates, #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr. and #5-Kasey Kahne.
‘You want to give yourself every opportunity to win at every race that’s in the Chase to guarantee yourself moving forward,’ said Gordon. ‘We know that Martinsville is a great track for us. I think all of Hendrick Motorsports understands that we’ve had great success here and we have confidence here and we can run really well here, and it’s important. It’s in the Chase.’
‘We haven’t tested here in a long, long time, so as a group we kind of sat in a room and raised our hands as to what tracks in the Chase we wanted to test at and the majority wanted to come to Martinsville,’ said Johnson. ‘We’re not reinventing the wheel while we’re here, but we’re certainly learning a lot and are hopeful to strike when we come back in the Chase.’
Some of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s biggest wins have come on NASCAR’s largest tracks. But it is the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ shortest track ‘¦ Martinsville Speedway ‘¦ that is a sentimental favorite for Earnhardt. Part of that sentiment stems from Earnhardt’s love for the roots of racing, and no track has deeper roots in NASCAR than Martinsville Speedway. And some of that sentiment comes from Earnhardt’s great success on the half-mile oval. Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t have a Martinsville win or one of the iconic grandfather clock trophies in his house, but his driver rating at Martinsville is consistently among the top two or three in the sport. He has 11 top-five finishes and 16 top-10 finishes on the difficult short-track and has finished second twice and third four times. While some drivers don’t especially look forward to 500 laps on the tight confines of Martinsville Speedway, Earnhardt relishes the two trips a year to Martinsville.
‘I just love short-track racing. I don’t really like running into people, but I like rubbing,’ Earnhardt said during his lunch break Tuesday. ‘I can appreciate someone using the bumper to get a spot without really causing too much of a problem for the guy who gets moved out of the way. I can respect that because you have got to do that sometimes. I feel like you come to expect that at this particular track. Since we’re all fighting to get around the bottom, you can only wait so long behind a guy before you have to get creative and get physical with the race car. I can take it as well as I can dish it. I do enjoy racing here. The success we have here just comes from a lot of testing, a lot of practice,’ said Earnhardt, who finished third in the STP 500 at Martinsville last spring. ‘When we first started racing here, I wasn’t very good and I remember coming several times and testing the first couple of seasons I was in the Cup series and that seemed to get us in a good direction. We got some good balance on our cars and what we need to get a car around this place and keep the tires on it.’(Martinsville Speedway)
