NASCAR restarts engines for Martinsville showdown
After the annual Easter off week, the NASCAR Cup Series resumes its marathon season this weekend in Virginia under the Martinsville Speedway lights – the second of three consecutive shorttrack races on the schedule.
Before heading into our first scheduled prime-time race of 2021 (is the Daytona 500 still going?), let’s catch everyone up with the regular season a little over a quarter of the way through.
Last time we spoke, Joey Logano became the first Cup driver to win a race on the dirt since King Richard Petty in 1970.
Logano joins a diverse group of winners this season, including Michael McDowell, Christopher Bell, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Blaney.
The Hendrick and Penske team stables have been the most consistent on a weekly basis, but the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas appear to be gaining ground.
Guys like McDowell, Daniel Suarez and Chris Buescher have all shown far more speed than anyone expected through the first two months, while usual suspects like Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott have all been inconsistent.
So that’s seven different winners to start the season, the most since 2014. Anyone wanna guess the last time we had eight?
Yes, 2003.
Actually, we had nine different winners to start the 2003 season, which was obviously not run under this current format. The roll call: Michael Waltrip (Daytona 500), Dale Jarrett, Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Ricky Craven, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon.
Kurt Busch became the first repeat winner in race No. 10 at Fontana, while Mild Matt Kenseth won the championship despite winning just one race.
So, who thinks we can surpass that 2003 total?
To do so, we’d need another new face in victory lane at Martinsville and then again next week at Richmond Raceway. After that, the series heads to Talladega Superspeedway, where, of course, nothing weird ever happens.
So, is it possible?
When star drivers like Elliott, Harvick, Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski have not won yet, don’t be surprised if the madness extends well past March.
While most drivers had the entire week off, Larson and Buescher spent April 1 testing a rain tire at Martinsville Speedway.
NASCAR last week said it wanted to do a “feasibility test” for wet-weather tires in a short-track setting. So during a chilly Martinsville morning, Buescher’s Roush Fenway Racing No. 17 and Larson’s No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet tried out tire setups on damp pavement.
NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing innovation John Probst said it was a “promising” morning. “Today could have ended it, but it certainly didn’t do that,” he added. “I feel like everyone involved felt like it was a very positive test, but it’s still fresh and certainly a very, very good first step.”