NASCAR racing should return to its roots more often

The Cool Down Lap: NASCAR racing should return to its roots more often

 

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

 

(October 31, 2011)

 

MARTINSVILLE, Va.—A race at Martinsville is a reminder and a revelation.

 

It’s a reminder, because, in watching an event at the .526-mile track, we recall the roots of NASCAR racing.

 

It’s a revelation, because we come to the traditional short tracks so infrequently that a steady diet of intermediate speedways dulls our sense of what racing is really like when it returns to those roots.

 

Sunday’s rock-’em-sock-’em Tums Fast Relief 500 was overflowing with the kind of action that can’t be duplicated at a bigger track.

 

“I think if we raced at more short tracks, I might be considered a dirty driver,” said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was involved in more than his share of fracases on the racetrack.

 

Joey Logano was a victim of Earnhardt’s bumper.

 

“He just dumped me,” radioed Logano, after his Toyota spun in Turn 3. “I’m sick of this (expletive).”

 

Greg Zipadelli, Logano’s crew chief, wasn’t particularly sympathetic.

 

“You’d better grow some balls and take care of it,” Zipadelli radioed back to his driver.

 

Rivalries and emotions ran high throughout the race. After racing David Ragan door-to-door for three laps, Earnhardt took the position by shoving Ragan up the racetrack. Chase driver Matt Kenseth settled a dispute with Brian Vickers by running Vickers’ Toyota into the Turn 3 fence.

 

Vickers, whose car looked like a demolition derby loser after five separate wrecks, dumped Jamie McMurray early in the race. McMurray destroyed his car against the backstretch wall in an attempt at revenge that went awry.

 

Kenseth, who wrecked with 36 laps left, returned to the track late in the race after repairs. Vickers was waiting. He went after Kenseth like a heat-seeking missile, one battered car applying the coup de grace to another. In all likelihood, that incident changed the outcome of the race, giving Tony Stewart a chance to pass Jimmie Johnson for the win after a restart with three laps left.

 

You can’t write that kind of script at a high-speed racetrack because the sort of banging that occurs at Martinsville is simply too dangerous at a downforce speedway.

 

Drivers know the value of racing at short tracks, of being able to express their emotions in their cars. Drivers also know that short-track racing in the Sprint Cup Series is bucking a trend.

 

In 1991, 15 of the 29 races on the Cup schedule—more than half—were contested on tracks shorter than 1.5 miles, but the speedway building boom that began later in the decade radically altered the complexion of the schedule.

 

Ultimately, Rockingham and North Wilkesboro, two action tracks, lost two races each. Darlington lost one. Of the 36 points races on the schedule, only 13 are held on tracks shorter than 1.5 miles.

 

“I’ll admit that when we went through this big building process of all these mile-and-a-halfs, nobody considered building something more like a Bristol or a Richmond or something like that,” third-place finisher Jeff Gordon said after the race. “I think that we need one or two more tracks like that on the circuit.

 

“So, yeah, Martinsville is a little extreme. This place is tough on brakes. Tempers flare. It’s a narrow place to race on. It can be tough, but it’s very entertaining. So you’ve got to like that.”

 

Short-track racing provides the sort of closeness and immediacy that’s not available at larger tracks.

 

“There’s two places where, when you take the lead, you absolutely know it,” Stewart said. “It’s Bristol and Martinsville. To pass Jimmie Johnson on the outside with two laps to go and to watch the crowd on the backstretch, then watch them on the frontstretch when we cleared him, you swear people are going to fall onto the racetrack.

 

“You feel that energy. You sense that. It’s not that you need extra motivation, but it’s cool to know you’ve got that kind of support. It’s just that extra drive that gets you the rest of the way that last lap. It’s cool.”

 

Cool indeed. And, accordingly, it’s time for Cup racing to consider a return to the sorts of venues that built NASCAR racing in the first place. After a seven-year absence from the NASCAR schedules, Rockingham Speedway will host a Camping World Truck Series race in April 2012. In a perfect world, a Sprint Cup date would follow shortly thereafter.

 

Iowa Speedway, an .875-mile vision of Rusty Wallace built in the image of Richmond International Raceway, is another short-track candidate for a Cup race. In the Nationwide and truck series, the action there has been exceptional.

 

Those sorts of venues give NASCAR a chance to reconnect with fans who grew up watching Saturday-night races at short tracks—and still do. Sunday’s race at Martinsville was a pointed reminder of how desirable a goal that is.