Martinsville Speedway is the oldest track on the NASCAR schedule, the only one left from the first year of Cup Series competition in 1949. It has produced some of the sport's greatest finishes, including last Halloween when Alex Bowman dumped Denny Hamlin out of the way before winning in overtime. A shortened distance to 400 laps in 2022 was only supposed to pump up the passion.
It's didn't.
Saturday night's Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 400 had the track acting every bit of 73 years old, nodding off to sleep with a snoozer that ended well past 11 p.m. William Byron won a race that had zero green-flag passes for the lead and minimal drama, even with another overtime finish. Just four cautions -- two for stage breaks -- stopped the action on a track where last fall there were four bump-and-runs alone in the final 44 laps of the race.
Will Smith's slap at the Oscars created more contact than a track that stakes its reputation on it.
"It was definitely harder to pass," runner-up Joey Logano said. "I don't think anyone could really pass without putting a bumper to somebody. It was a lot more challenging and it's harder to get there… you really just got stuck."
That's two races, two whiffs on contact for a NASCAR series that prides itself on short track action. There were a couple of mitigating factors for Martinsville Saturday night, including weather. The race was delayed by sleet while 40-degree temperatures kept rubber from littering the track and adding grip. Byron also nailed the setup, leaving everyone playing catchup as he led 212 of the race's final 218 laps.
But there was no denying there's a problem with the Next Gen chassis at the sport's most important track type. Local short tracks are the lynchpin of NASCAR's future, stars born from rooting and gouging their way to wins on the late model circuit. It's the equivalent of a minor league baseball system where Saturday night wins under the lights get you noticed for Sunday.
"I probably get more fans from going to a race at Hickory or Pensacola or New Smyrna," Byron said of moonlighting at short tracks, "Than I do going to do something here at the track."
That should mean the short track Cup races NASCAR has in Richmond, Bristol and Martinsville should be the pinnacle of the half-mile experience: a combination of driver skill, frayed fenders and non-stop side-by-side action. You'd think adding shifting back into the equation this year with the new car would help drivers differentiate themselves and lead to more passing, spins and short tempers.
Instead, drivers just find themselves running in place, stuck in dirty air unless multiple grooves, like Richmond, allow them to stay out of each other's way and run like a 1.5-mile oval. One-groove tracks can't work with the rock-hard Next Gen exterior making it near-impossible to push someone out of the way and disrupt their rhythm.
The answer comes in the form of tweaks to the package, one teams might not get for short tracks until 2023. NASCAR would be wise to consider them even sooner, especially if the Bristol Dirt Race follows the same monotonous formula Easter Sunday.
Traffic Report
Green: William Byron -- Last month, I wrote about how Byron was falling behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammates after starting the year wrecking twice. Well, the sport's first multi-time winner this year is hitting his stride with former Camping World Truck Series crew chief Rudy Fugle and may be the best in-house challenger to Kyle Larson for this year's championship.
Yellow: Chase Elliott -- Yes, 185 laps led from the pole was a step in the right direction at one of Elliott's best tracks. He's still the point leader, up by 3 over Blaney after Martinsville. But on raw speed, it still feels like NASCAR's Most Popular Driver is fourth best on the four-man Hendrick totem pole right now.
Red: Martin Truex Jr. -- Finishing 22nd with no laps led at a track where Truex won three of the last five races? That's a bad look as missed opportunities for the No. 19 team keep adding up.
Speeding Ticket: Kyle Larson -- This time, an actual speeding ticket kept Larson from a better Martinsville finish, assessed under green with a penalty that knocked him back to 19th. The defending NASCAR champion now has more finishes outside the top 15 (five) than inside the top 10 (three) as his title defense feels a little wobbly.
Oops!
Not a good look for Ty Gibbs to have a semi-permanent lockdown on this category. A wild NASCAR Xfinity Series race ended with Gibbs losing the lead, then getting punted out of the way by Sam Mayer as Brandon Jones worked his way into victory lane.
In a flash, $100,000 changed hands, a NASCAR Xfinity bonus for select drivers that went to AJ Allemendinger, not Gibbs due to the contact. Gibbs' frustration led to words, then punches with Mayer on pit road.
"I had the $100,000 in my sights, and I was going to do what I had to do to try to get that," Mayer said. "Yeah, I put the bumper to him … in my opinion, it was just a clean bump-and-run. Just decided to throw a couple of punches, but that's fine by me… he just snapped."
Gibbs saw it differently.
"I tried to talk to him, and he got all in my face," Gibbs responded. "At that point, you gotta start fighting... I just got driven into the fence at the end."
My opinion? While neither one left Martinsville looking good, Gibbs is establishing a pattern of immature behavior similar to Noah Gragson last year. If there's a silver lining, Gragson learned from it and grew up, still aggressive but with a win, five top-5 finishes and a better on-track reputation in the season's first eight races.
Can Ty follow suit? What will grandfather and car owner Joe Gibbs do?
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April 11, 2022 at 11:11PM
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NASCAR Crash Course: Martinsville Speedway shows its age with latest snoozer - CBS Sports
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