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NASCAR goes back in time at Martinsville
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Location: Blogs Running Wide Open |
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| Posted by: Joe VanHoose |
3/27/2008 9:07 AM |
This is a good weekend to be a NASCAR fan, as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Martinsville Speedway in Virginia.
There are really only two racetracks left in NASCAR that stand as a living piece of the past: Darlington and Martinsville. But to gauge what NASCAR was like when it started up 60 years ago, there is no better gateway than the 62-year-old half-mile paperclip in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
While other older tracks like Bristol, Daytona and Charlotte (Lowe's) have all been gutted and rebuilt, parts of Martinsville Speedway still look like they are from another time and place. Race fans walking into the facility may as well be walking back into a simpler time in NASCAR.
Maybe it's because the track isn't as shiny and refined as others, or maybe it's because the facility only seats 65,000, but talk creeps up every year that Martinsville is in danger of losing one of its two NASCAR race dates. Detractors of the place have a valid argument.
Yes, there are other racetracks on the schedule that could draw a bigger crowd if given one of Martinsville's dates. Yes, Martinsville is a logistical nightmare with a complete lack of hotels, corporate hospitality space and four-star restaurants.
But Martinsville has something that no other track on the NASCAR schedule does: a birthright. Martinsville is the only operating track left from the original NASCAR schedule. To disregard that would be no better than a rich and selfish man disregarding his own grandfather.
The biggest racing series in America has every right to leave the small Appalachian track behind, but it shouldn't. Just as the Red Sox still play baseball in Fenway Park and Green Bay Packers still throw the pigskin around in Lambeau Field, race fans still get to watch their favorite drivers slam each other around Martinsville Speedway.
I hope they always do. |
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