Martinsville Speedway Tag

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – The first night race for the NASCAR Cup Series at Martinsville Speedway was a cakewalk for Hendrick Motorsports—until a late caution sent the race to overtime, that is.  But William Byron survived a final restart and a mistake on the white-flag lap to win Saturday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 at the .526-mile short track.  Byron led 212 of the 403 laps. Teammate and pole winner Chase Elliott led the first 185 circuits, as Hendrick Motorsports surpassed 10,000 laps ledRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILE, Va. – On older tires, Brandon Jones stole an Xfinity Series win from the scion of the owner of his race team on Saturday night at Martinsville Speedway.  Jones dived to the inside of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs as the Call 811 Before You Dig 250 went to a second overtime. Jones cleared Gibbs on the second circuit (Lap 261) and got to the finish line .677 seconds ahead of Landon Cassill, as Sam Mayer bumped Gibbs’s Toyota and squeezed itRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor For the second week in a row, the NASCAR Cup Series stays in the State of Virginia, as it heads down to Martinsville Speedway for Saturday night’s Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic half-mile, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man and machine over the course of the evening. Martinsville marks the smallest track the Next Gen car has raced on since the exhibition race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to kickRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service William Byron proved emphatically Thursday night that he hadn’t forgotten how to drive a truck. Making only his second start in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series since 2016—after a blown engine knocked him out of last year’s Nashville race—Byron parlayed perfect pit strategy into a decisive victory in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 200 at Martinsville Speedway. In his last full season in the series in 2016, Byron won seven races before moving on to the Xfinity Series and finally to the CupRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Denny Hamlin may be moving on to the Championship 4 to fight for a NASCAR Cup Series championship next week, but after Sunday’s race at Martinsville, it’s clear his focus is currently on Alex Bowman and the late race contact between the two. As the two drivers battled for the lead with less than 10 laps to go, Bowman got into Turn 3 too hot, moving up the track into Hamlin’s left-rear quarter panel, sending him for a spin into the outside wall. While Hamlin wasRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Denny Hamlin provided the perfect capstone to a day of banged-up stock cars, hurt feelings and crushed dreams. Alex Bowman took the checkered flag in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway after sliding up into Hamlin’s race-leading Toyota on Lap 494 of 501 and knocking Hamlin’s car up the track and into the outside wall. As Bowman tried to start a burnout to celebrate his fourth NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and his first at the .526-mile short track,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – To get to the Championship 4, you have to drive like a champion. That’s what Noah Gragson did on Saturday night in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff race Dead On Tools 250 at Martinsville Speedway. Faced with the necessity of winning the race to keep his NASCAR Xfinity Series title hopes alive, Gragson did just that, pulling off a dramatic pass of Daniel Hemric from the outside lane in the first attempt at overtime and holding off series leader Austin CindricRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – On a track strewn with spinning trucks and broken hearts, Zane Smith catapulted into the Championship 4 with a thrilling overtime victory in Saturday’s United Rentals 200 at Martinsville Speedway. In a no-holds-barred race that featured 14 cautions for 89 laps, Smith won under yellow after he, Stewart Friesen and Todd Gilliland raced three-wide—yes, three-wide at Martinsville—off Turn 4 on the first lap of overtime. Contact from Friesen’s Toyota sent Gilliland’s Ford spinning across the start/finish line to start the finalRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Seven drivers enter Martinsville Speedway with a shot at moving on to next week’s NASCAR Cup Series championship race, but only three will leave Sunday’s Xfinity 500 with those title hopes still intact. The Round of 8 in the Cup Series Playoffs all comes down to the half-mile bullring in southern Virginia, where bent sheet metal and hurt feelings are all but inevitable. A mainstay on the schedule since 1949, the historic track, which is also the smallest on the circuit, will test both man andRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service In 2022, the NASCAR Cup Series will return to the Last Great Coliseum after visiting one of the first great coliseums for the first time. The series will make its first trip to the shores of the Mississippi under the shadow of the Gateway Arch. And the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs will have a new look, with Homestead-Miami Speedway moving back into the postseason and each round featuring a shakeup of the participating tracks. For the first time in its history, the Clash, theRead More