STP 500 Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville was shaping up to be a promising day for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and his No 88 team, but a late race crash would put an end to his hopes for his first top-10 of the season, relegating him to a 34th place finish instead. Martinsville serves as one of Earnhardt’s better tracks on the circuit, with one win, 13 top-five finishes, 18 top-10 finishes, 972 laps led, and an average finish of 12.9 in 33 starts entering the day, soRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – For the second straight week, Kyle Larson will start on the pole for a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series event. He can only hope the result of the race is the same, too. Last week, Larson won the pole at Auto Club Speedway and went on to win last Sunday’s race at the two-mile track. On Friday, when rain washed out time trials at Martinsville Speedway, Larson earned the top starting spot for Sunday’s STP 500 (2 p.m. ET on FS1)Read More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After winning his seventh championship last fall, Jimmie Johnson and his No. 48 team haven’t exactly been setting the world on fire through the first five races of 2017, but this weekend’s trip to Martinsville Speedway could be just what the doctor ordered. Entering Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville, Johnson has only finished in the top-10 once this season and sits 17th in points. However, Martinsville ranks as one of his best tracks on the circuit, second only to Auto Club Speedway in average finishRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor After completing the Western swing, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series heads back east this weekend and straight to the first short track race of the season, with Sunday’s running of the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway. 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 500 grueling laps. The track has basically one groove, meaning the only way to pass will be the move we all know andRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief An eventful STP 500 from Martinsville Speedway has been settled and Kyle Busch is the man that grabbed the traditional grandfather clock after holding off AJ Allmendinger in the closing stages. Here are the key topics coming from Sunday’s race at NASCAR’s oldest track. 1) Impatience from start to finish The common theme is patience early and then to take everything late. That certainly wasn’t the case on Sunday, from the drop of the green flag bumpers found each other with drivers more than willing toRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Richard Childress Racing had a phenomenal effort in the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, with their trio of drivers all securing top 10 finishes, led by Austin Dillon in fourth. The weekend began with Paul Menard qualifying fourth, Ryan Newman fifth and Dillon 29th. At the start, Menard pushed his No. 27 Libman/Menard’s Chevrolet SS to the front early, leading 10 laps and looking like a contender for the win. Newman also hung among the leaders, but as the race went on the No.Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Brian Vickers did an incredible job substituting for the injured Tony Stewart Sunday at Martinsville, and recorded the best finish for the No. 14 team so far this year. Vickers not only recorded the best finish of 2016 for the team, but his seventh place finish Sunday is actually the best finish for this race team since Stewart finished sixth at Bristol 35 races ago. Vickers is happy with the outcome, but he yearns for more. “I was pleased but not satisfied. We had suchRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch came to Martinsville Speedway this weekend with no grandfather clock trophies from the shortest and tightest of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series short tracks. He left with two clocks after completing an unprecedented Martinsville sweep in Sunday’s STP 500, and, appropriately, the first question he radioed to his crew after his celebratory burnouts dealt with telling time. “What time is it?” crowed the reigning series champion, who a day earlier had won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series raceRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer After some impressive driving from the 2016 rookie class in the first five races of the season, their biggest challenge thus far would be Sunday’s trip to Martinsville Speedway for the STP 500. As the smallest track on the circuit, Martinsville is one of the toughest tracks, with the long straightaways and flat hairpin turns making for a long, grueling day with 39 of your closest friends.  The half-mile track is tough for even the most seasoned veterans, but for rookies making their first startRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Going into Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville, it looked like Kyle Larson was in the middle of a lost season. Through the first five races of the season, Larson had just one top-10 finish and sat 24th in the championship standings. There wasn’t much reason for optimism heading into this week’s race either, as Larson had struggled through four previous starts at the half-mile paper clip track. His best finish at the shortest and oldest track in NASCAR was 19th in the fall of 2015.Read More