By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Hendrick Motorsports flexed its muscles Sunday, but Denny Hamlin’s team made the right call in the pits, propelling the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to victory in the Goody’s Cool Orange 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Martinsville Speedway.

Taking fuel only to polesitter Jeff Gordon’s four tires and fuel on the final pit stop for both drivers on Lap 388, Hamlin beat Gordon out of the pits for a restart on Lap 394, after Ken Schrader’s Toyota spread oil on the track to bring out the 18th and final caution of the race.

Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers, Carl Edwards and Casey Mears stayed on the track during the Lap 388 pit stop, but one-by-one Hamlin picked them off. He passed Burton for the lead off Turn 2 on Lap 427 and held it the rest of the way, as the 500-lap race went green to the finish.

As the frontrunners worked through traffic in the closing laps, Gordon passed Burton for second and finished 0.398 seconds behind Hamlin. Burton held onto third, followed Jimmie Johnson (who rallied from a spin on Lap 296) and Tony Stewart. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished sixth and Mears seventh to give Hendrick four of the top seven positions. Jamie McMurray, Edwards and Clint Bowyer completed the top 10.

“You got a clock, baby, you got a clock,” shouted crew chief Mike Ford as Hamlin crossed the line, referring to the grandfather clock trophy that goes to the winner.

The victory was Hamlin’s fourth in the series in 85 starts and the first in his home state. The win also broke a 24-race dry spell prolonged by a streak of rotten luck, the latest installment of which occurred two weeks ago at Bristol when Hamlin’s fuel pickup faltered with him in the lead on a green-white-checkered-flag restart. Hamlin finished sixth.

“It’s the first Virginia win for me, and well, finally the curse is over — I hope,” said Hamlin, who notched the second win in the series for Toyota. “We’ve had some bad luck these past few weeks. We’ve been so close so many times, and it feels great to finally break through.”

Like Johnson, Gordon lost track position in a mishap. Gordon’s occurred off Turn 4 on Lap 57 when the nose of his No. 24 Chevrolet was nicked during a four-car melee. Gordon restarted 32nd on Lap 65 and began a charge through the field; he regained the lead on Lap 269.

But the last two sets of tires didn’t work well with Gordon’s car. Handling issues and cold, wet track conditions made overtaking Hamlin impossible in the closing laps.

“It came down to pit strategy, and Denny and those guys definitely did the right thing,” said Gordon, who believed at the time that Hamlin had taken two tires instead of none. “I just couldn’t get going on those
last two sets.

“I was trying to figure out why the car had no grip out there the last few laps. Then I got out of the car and realized that we were racing in the rain.”

Adhesion didn’t seem to be an issue for Hamlin, who won the race on old tires after opting for track position on the final stop. Hamlin also survived a mistake on Lap 215 when his car crossed the pit road commitment line on the backstretch, forcing him to pit from the lead to avoid incurring a penalty.

Hamlin restarted 19th on Lap 219 and, like Gordon, charged to the front.

Unlike Gordon, Hamlin stayed there.

Notes: With series points leader Kyle Busch finishing 38th, Burton took over the top spot in the standings by 39 points over Richard Childress Racing teammate Kevin Harvick. … Gordon (ninth) and Johnson (10th)climbed back into the top 12 in points as did Hamlin, who moved up seven spots to eighth. Martin Truex Jr. (13th), Matt Kenseth (15th) and Kurt Busch (16th) fell from the top 12. … Michael McDowell finished 26th in his Cup debut, beating teammates Michael Waltrip (35th) and David Reutimann (39th).

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 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Martinsville Unoffical Results

Setzer Takes Hamilton Racing Back To Victory Lane

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

MARTINSVILLE, Va. (March 29, 2008) — For the first time since the late Bobby Hamilton won at Mansfield, Ohio, in 2005, Dennis Setzer took Bobby Hamilton Racing back to victory lane.

“This win right here is for Bobby Hamilton only — he is the man!” shouted crew chief Marcus Richmond after Setzer, who had run 173 laps since his final pit stop, crossed the finish line with trucks wrecking in his wake.

Setzer’s victory in the Kroger 250 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race Saturday at Martinsville Speedway was his third at the .526-mile short track and the 18th of his career. Setzer won for the first time since taking the checkered flag at Mansfield on May 26, 2007.

Hamilton, who posted 10 wins in the truck series before his death from cancer on Jan. 7, 2007, claimed his last victory at that same track on May 15, 2005.

“I ran second to Bobby Hamilton the year he won the championship (2004),” Setzer said. “We raced really hard against each other, but off the track, we were the best of friends. I don’t think we ever had a harsh word for one another. I respected him a lot.”

The 15th and final caution of the race on Lap 248 necessitated a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took Saturday’s race three laps beyond its scheduled distance. As Setzer rounded Turn 3 on the final circuit, Kyle Busch powered his No. 51 Toyota beneath the second-place No. 23 Toyota of Johnny Benson as the trucks entered the corner.

Busch’s truck clipped Benson’s and both spun out of control. Matt Crafton dodged the wreck to finish second, and Rick Crawford came home third. Ken Schrader inherited fourth place and Erik Darnell fifth, as Benson and Busch dropped to 25th and 26th at the finish, respectively.

“Kyle drove in underneath that 23 and wheel-hopped it and opened the door for me,” said Crafton, who had an up-close view of the accident. I kind of shut my eyes and went through the middle. In Kyle’s defense, he wheel-hopped and got sideways, and that’s why he wrecked the 23.”

Setzer took the lead on Lap 128 when Brent Raymer spun in Turn 4 in front of Busch, who had surged past teammate Denny Hamlin on Lap 97 and stayed in front until the mishap with Raymer. Setzer remained in the lead the rest of the way, through nine more cautions that helped him stretch his fuel mileage.

Notes: Martinsville Speedway president Clay Campbell is part of the ownership group for Bobby Hamilton Racing, which relocated from Nashville, Tenn., to Martinsville after Hamilton’s death. . . Busch retained the series points lead by 35 over Todd Bodine, who finished 12th Saturday.

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Guest Column By Cathy Elliott Note: Media outlets may use this column in their publications, free of charge.

Mike: “Hey, did you watch ‘Lost Idol Survivor Apprentice’ last weekend?”

Maggie: “Of course I did. I never miss one. What did you think about that ending?”

Mike: “Fantastic. I never saw it coming; definitely a wild finish.”

Maggie: “I know. I’m just relieved my favorite did okay for another week. He’s looking good for the finals, I think. I was a little worried about him at first. Some of the other guys looked really strong in the early episodes.”

Mike: “Well, you know how these season-long competitions work. Some guys just like to bide their time early on and then come on strong at the end.”

Maggie: “Did you happen to see the TV ratings? They were actually higher than the numbers for the installment that aired last year on the same date.”

Mike: “I did see that. Think it means anything?”

Maggie: “Oh, yeah. It means this is a great show that people want to watch … and these are just the early episodes. We haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until things get cranked up at the end!”

This doesn’t really sound like a conversation between a couple of ordinary, average television viewers, does it? Of course not. While hit shows become hits for a reason – something about them captures the attention and devotion of the masses – no one really gets terribly hung up on the actual numbers. We like what we like, and it is no more complicated than that.

Sounds a lot like NASCAR fans. 

This seems somewhat contradictory on the surface, as NASCAR is a sport literally driven by numbers. Qualifying speeds. Series standings. Starting and finishing order. The Top 35. The Top 12. And these things just barely scratch the surface of what is probably the most numbers-oriented sport in the world.

There is a phrase, often used in business settings, postulating that you “Live by the numbers; die by the numbers.” Of course, this refers to things like gross revenues, asset inflow versus outflow, adjustable versus fixed rates, mandatory convertibles (That’s a car I really, really need to have, right?) and lots of other cool financial catch phrases that verbally oriented people don’t really comprehend.

Sometimes this mindset can dig a whole big well of worry, which, if we allow it to, can have a detrimental effect on one of the most major areas of our lives — FUN.

In South Carolina, where I live, we have a statewide lottery system. Once a week I stop by the corner convenience store and buy a single Powerball ticket. The numbers aren’t necessarily in my favor – in fact, they’re roughly 32 million-to-one against me – but still there is a chance that my single-dollar investment could one day net me 15 million bucks or more. You never know, but it’s fun to speculate.

The bathroom scale and my blue jeans – an evil and conniving couple, definitely in cahoots – sometimes inform me that I have deviated a couple of pounds from my ideal weight. (This particular number is only made public on a need-to-know basis.)

Whether this is the result of too much sodium in last night’s pad Thai, leaving the jeans in the dryer a few minutes too long, or an ill-advised second slice of Key Lime Pie is an answer not worth agonizing over. A couple of days at the salad bar and a couple of hours on the treadmill can cut that five right back to a three. Why worry about it?

I’m hearing a fair amount of grousing lately over the fact that Tony Stewart hasn’t won a race yet, or that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the only Hendrick Motorsports driver currently in the Top 12 (for the completely uninitiated, this means that Jeff Gordon and defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson both sit below the number 12 mark in the standings and would not make the Chase, if the season ended today).

But let’s be realistic. We’re just getting started here. We’re not even 25 percent done with the 2008 race season yet. A single day can, and probably will, change all those numbers, turn them completely around and upside down. Then the next week, the same thing will happen all over again.

I guess the point is that whether my bank account is 50 dollars on the low side, my jeans are a little snug or “my” driver starts the next race in 31st position rather than first, numbers, like so many things in life, have a way of balancing themselves out. This is all accomplished with, or without, my personal “worry ticker” constantly punching its buttons and running its tape to dampen my enthusiasm and foul up my fun.

It’s all the proverbial tempest in a teapot (or storm at the speedway) anyway, because in the end, only a single digit matters, and it never changes.

For fans of the sport, NASCAR is always number one.

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Martinsville Sprint Cup Starting Line Up

Martinsville Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying Order

NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES

Johnson, Gordon Welcome Return To Martinsville:
 Much has been made of the early-season struggles of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, although in their respective cases, “struggle” is a relative word. After all, coming into Sunday’s Martinsville event, Johnson is 13th in the series standings while Gordon is 14th.
Martinsville would appear to offer the perfect remedy for both. Here’s why:
• Johnson, the two-time defending series champion, has won the last three races at Martinsville.
• Four-time series champion Gordon leads all active drivers in Martinsville wins, with seven.
• Combined, the two Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won eight of the last 10 Martinsville events.

He’s A Contender:
As the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series reaches its sixth race of the season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is looking more like a Chase contender all the time. After starting the year with victories in two non-points events – the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Gatorade Duel qualifying races for the Daytona 500 – Earnhardt has posted three top-five finishes, one of only three drivers to do that in the season’s first five weeks. That is the sort of consistency that produces championships.
Earnhardt finished fifth in the series’ last race, at Bristol; he’s fifth in the series points, surprisingly the highest standing among Hendrick Motorsports drivers.
On the other hand, he’s trying to defy some personal history this weekend; he has never won at Martinsville.

Regarding The Top 35, The Bubble Has Burst:
 Five races are in the books. That means the weekly guaranteed starting spots to the top 35 teams in car owner points are based on CURRENT standings.
Sam Hornish Jr., the former Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series champion driving the No. 77 Dodge for Roger Penske, has the 35th and final guaranteed spot going into Martinsville.
There are some surprises, regarding those on the outside looking in.
Looking up at Hornish – and having to qualify on time at Martinsville:
• Jamie McMurray, in 36th
• Dave Blaney, 37th
• Last year’s Indy 500 and IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti, in 38th
• Regan Smith, 39th
• Kyle Petty, 40th

Competitive Balance The Rule, Thus Far:
 Chevrolet’s 2007 dominance has become a distant memory very quickly. Thus far, all four manufacturers have posted victories, with Chevrolet finally getting its first, at Bristol. In addition, Toyota posted its historic first victory in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series three weeks ago at Atlanta.
 Furthermore, all four manufacturers are represented in the top 12 of the NSCS standings.  Here’s the breakdown:
• Chevrolet – 5 teams
• Dodge – 3
• Ford – 2
• Toyota – 2

60th Anniversary Season Coming To Martinsville,
Which Was There At The Start
This season marks NASCAR’s 60th anniversary. This week, the sport comes to the only track that was on the very first schedule back in 1948 – Martinsville Speedway, in Martinsville, Va.
The Goody’s Cool Orange 500 on Sunday will continue a tradition that started on July 4, 1948.
That’s right.
Martinsville, not Daytona, was the first race track to celebrate the Independence Day tradition, NASCAR-style.
Martinsville then was on the inaugural schedule in 1949 for the Strictly Stock Series, the precursor to what is now known as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Michael Waltrip Racing – One Year Later:
A year after the early-season problems that doomed Michael Waltrip Racing to a disappointing 2007 season, things are looking up. All three MWR Toyota teams are in the top 35 of car owner points going into Martinsville.
That’s one part of the story. The other involves the domino effect on the driving lineup, caused by the retirement of Dale Jarrett. Starting this week, David Reutimann takes over the No. 44 previously driven by Jarrett and first-year driver Michael McDowell steps in the No. 00 previously driven by Reutimann.
Michael Waltrip remains in the No. 55 Toyota.
 
NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES

Breakthrough For Bowyer
 Clint Bowyer is the new leader of the NASCAR Nationwide Series point standings, after his second-place finish over the weekend at Nashville – marking the first time in his career he has led the standings in a NASCAR national series.
 This seems like a status that is surprisingly overdue, considering Bowyer was the 2005 NASCAR Nationwide series championship runner-up – and finished third in last year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup standings.

Open Week Leads To Short-Track Test
 The first open week of the season for the NASCAR Nationwide Series features the series’ lone short-track test session, Monday and Tuesday of this week at Richmond International Raceway.
More than 20 teams and 30 drivers are expected. 

Tough Competition Evidenced By Standings’ Top 10
 Five of the current top 10 drivers in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings race exclusively in the series. Those five:
• Mike Bliss (5th);
• Brad Keselowski (6th), running for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s JR Motorsports operation;
• Kelly Bires (8th), coming off his first top-five finish, at Nashville;
• Mike Wallace (9th);
• Jason Leffler (10th).

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES

Another Wallace:
Chrissy Wallace, 19, will attempt to become the latest member of the famed Wallace family to make a start in a NASCAR national series, Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. Her father, Mike, will spot for her in the Kroger 250.

Short Track Means Big Opportunity For Skinner:
 On Saturday, Mike Skinner will attempt to become the first driver to win three consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races at the same short track. Skinner swept both Martinsville races in 2007 and is the track’s only three-time winner. No driver in the series has won four times at the same short track.
 In this race last season, Skinner scored a perfect Driver Rating of 150.0.

BBM Hunting for Owners’ Title
Billy Ballew Motorsports continues to chase the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series owners’ championship with Kyle Busch and other drivers. In 206 starts prior to the 2008 season, the team never has ranked higher than fifth in the points.

A Martinsville Homecoming
Martinsville is becoming a hub of NCTS activity with two teams (H-T Motorsports and Bobby Hamilton Racing VA) and a top engine builder (Joey Arrington) calling the southern Virginia city home. BHR VA’s Dennis Setzer, a two-time Martinsville Speedway winner, ranks ninth in current points while H-T’s Ted Musgrave, a former NCTS champion, is a single point out of the top 10. The activity has been brought a number of local residents into NASCAR including graduates of Patrick Henry Community College’s motorsports program, who have joined BHR VA in shop and over-the-wall capacities.

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• Time For A Rebound: Johnson, Gordon In Half-Mile Comfort Zone

• Fifth-Place Earnhardt After First Martinsville Victory

• Michael McDowell Steps In As Dale Jarrett Retires

• The Bubble: Top 35 Guarantees Based On 2008 Points

• 60th Anniversary Season: NASCAR Returns To One Of 1948’s Tracks

Second-Straight Short-Track Week Bodes Well For Johnson, Gordon

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (March 25, 2008) – By any calculation, the following numbers just don’t add up.

Together, Jimmie Johnson (No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet) and Jeff Gordon (No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet) have won a total of six NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships — but not a single race thus far this season.

Five races worth of frustration finds Johnson 13th in the series standings, Gordon 14th.

That has opened the door for some early-season optimism by everyone else, following last season’s Johnson-Gordon domination that resulted in 16 victories and a 1-2 finish in the final standings.

Don’t be surprised if the door gets slammed shut, for at least a week, come Sunday, as the series visits a short track for the second straight week, following the previous event at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Martinsville Speedway — site of Sunday’s Goody’s Cool Orange 500 — seemingly arrives at a most opportune time for the two struggling past champions. Johnson has won the last three Martinsville events; together, he and Gordon have won eight of the last 10 races at the .526-mile oval, the series’ only track that was on the very first NASCAR schedule in 1948.

Sixty years of Martinsville amounts to a lot of history but since 2003, history had been made, basically, by Johnson and Gordon — especially in April of 2007 when the two seriously tested the stability of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ “new car” with a contact-laden battle over the race’s closing laps. Johnson outslugged his Hendrick Motorsports teammate by a scant .065 seconds.

Earnhardt Seeks Breakthrough Win; McDowell Seeks Solid Debut

The upside for Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet) coming into Sunday’s event at Martinsville Speedway:

He’s fifth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series point standings, the highest-ranked of Hendrick Motorsports’ star-studded four-man team.

The downside: He has never won at Martinsville Speedway.

That’s not to say he hasn’t been close.

Earnhardt has seven top fives in 16 Martinsville starts — including a fifth in 2007’s spring event.

Of Earnhardt’s 17 NASCAR Sprint Cup victories, four have come on short tracks (ovals less than one mile in length) — three at Richmond International Raceway, one at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the learning curve this week we find Michael McDowell, who is technically replacing David Reutimann in the No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing. But in reality, he’s replacing NASCAR legend Dale Jarrett, who retired after the March 16 race at Bristol, leaving the No. 44 UPS Toyota to David Reutimann, the former driver of the No. 00.

McDowell is assured of making his first NASCAR Sprint Cup start Sunday; the No. 00 is safely within the top 35 of the owner points and is thus guaranteed a spot in the field.

Said McDowell: “To make your debut at Martinsville is tough. Lot of laps … lot of hard laps. … I’ve done a lot of training to make sure I’m in shape for 500 laps.”

In The Loop: Gordon Rates Highest, At Martinsville

For the season, Kyle Busch (No. 18 M&M’s/Interstate Batteries Toyota) has the top spot in NASCAR’s Driver Rating. (See chart at right of page.)

As far as Martinsville Speedway is concerned, that status belongs to Jeff Gordon.

Compilation of track-specific Driver Rating data began in 2005, which means the last six Martinsville events are the basis for Gordon’s 124.5 rating.

Gordon’s Martinsville success could mean a shake-up in the top 12 once the checkered flag falls Sunday. Gordon sits in 14th-place, 21 points behind 12th-place Martin Truex Jr. (No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats Chevrolet), and has finished inside the top five in six consecutive Martinsville races.

During that six-race span, Gordon has an Average Running Position of 7.2 (second-best), a series-high 342 Fastest Laps Run, 2,606 Laps in the Top 15 (second) and 147 Quality Passes (passes of cars in the top 15 under green), which is fourth-best.

Also hoping a continued Martinsville hot streak will lead to a top-12 spot is Jimmie Johnson, winner of the last three races there. Only once has Johnson finished outside the top 10 at Martinsville – as a rookie in 2002 in his first trip.

Since then, he’s had eight top fives in 11 starts. Since 2005, Johnson has a Driver Rating of 120.8 (second-best), an Average Running Position of 7.3 (third), 296 Fastest Laps Run (second) and has spent 86.2% of the laps in the top 15 (third).

Adding to the possibility of a top-12 shakeup – Truex struggles at Martinsville. In four starts at the Virginia short track, Truex has never finished better than 19th and has led just one lap. His Martinsville Driver Rating is 58.3 (the lowest of any driver currently in the top 12) and his Average Running Position is 25.3 (also the lowest among the top 12.)

And finally, here are some Loop Data nuggets in support of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s chances Sunday. His statistics there since 2005 rank comfortably in the top 10 of several categories. He has a Driver Rating of 95.8 (sixth), an Average Running Position of 11.9 (fifth), 205 Fastest Laps Run (fourth) and a series-high 304 Green Flag Passes.

On The Bubble: Hornish Is In, Franchitti’s Not

With five races in the books for the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season, the weekly guaranteed starting spots start going to the top 35 teams in current car owner point standings. (For this season’s first five races, the guarantees went to the top 35 teams in the final 2007 points.)

There are some definite surprises thus far — on both sides of the “bubble.”

Michael Waltrip Racing has all three of its teams in the top 35 — with Waltrip (No. 55 NAPA Toyota), David Reutimann (No. 44 UPS Toyota) and Michael McDowell (No. 00 Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota) driving.

Sam Hornish Jr. (No. 77 Mobil 1 Dodge) the former Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar Series champion, is safe for now. Hornish, who started the year with an impressive 15th-place run at the Daytona 500 for Penske Racing, has the 35th and final spot going into Martinsville.

Casey Mears (No. 5 CARQUEST/Kellogg’s Chevrolet), part of Hendrick Motorsports’ powerhouse lineup, is 33rd, only 12 points ahead of Hornish. Mears, keep in mind, was a winner of one of NASCAR’s biggest events last season, the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

Jamie McMurray, a member of Jack Roush’s well-stocked stable of drivers, is 36th this week, forced to rely on his qualifying speed to make Sunday’s field. Like Mears, McMurray also had a marquee win last season, capturing the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway in July.

Dario Franchitti, last year’s Indy 500 and IndyCar Series champion, is down in 38th, amid a challenging start to his first NASCAR season driving for Chip Ganassi and Felix Sabates.

And veteran Kyle Petty is 40th, with his team an already-perilous 60 points behind Hornish’s. Encouraging: In recent years, Petty has shown glimpses of his 1980s form at Martinsville; he finished 10th in the 2006 fall race. … “I have a lot of experience at Martinsville and that should help us qualify our way in to Sunday’s race,” Petty said. “This is not an enviable position to be in, but I have a good team around me and we can dig our way out of this. … I’ve been in this situation before and we’ve come out just fine. We’re more than capable of hitting a streak where we get a string of top-10 or top-15 finishes. Martinsville would be a good place to start one.”

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, Etc.

On The Line: Trio of Guests Set For Weekly NASCAR Teleconference … This week’s NASCAR Teleconference is scheduled for Wednesday, from Noon-1 p.m. (ET), with three special guests. Leading off will be Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell, followed at 12:15. by former NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Todd Bodine and Greg Biffle (No. 16 Jackson Hewitt Ford) — currently second in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points — at 12:30. Media should call (888) 699-8040 to participate. Approximately one hour after completion, audio files and a transcript of the teleconference will be available on NASCARMedia.com.

Bowyer Two Times Tough: Clint Bowyer (No. 07 BB&T Chevrolet) is following last year’s spectacular season in fine fashion. A third-place finisher in the Chase for NASCAR Sprint Cup, Bowyer is ninth in series points going into Martinsville. But he’s also leading the points in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, after a runner-up finish at Nashville Superspeedway this past Saturday night. This marks the first time Bowyer has led the standings of a NASCAR national series.
 
Virginia Tech’s Beamer Serving As Grand Marshal … Frank Beamer, head football coach at Virginia Tech, will be the Grand Marshal for the Goody’s Cool Orange 500. “I think most people know how much I love racing, and I’m delighted by this honor,” Beamer said.

“This is a real privilege,” added Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell.

Burton After Short-Track Sweep … Jeff Burton (No. 31 AT&T Mobility Chevrolet), winner at Bristol Motor Speedway’s half-mile two weeks ago, will try to pull off an early-season short-track sweep on Sunday. In 2005, an adjustment of the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule put Bristol and Martinsville back-to-back. Consecutive short-track races were once commonplace, but that had disappeared from the schedule in 1999. The last time a driver swept short-track events on consecutive weeks was Jeff Gordon, at Bristol and Martinsville, in 1997.

Burton — fourth in series points this week — has a solid record at Martinsville: In 27 starts, he has a victory, nine top-five and 13 top-10 finishes. According to Loop Data statistics, Burton has been the sport’s seventh-best green-flag passer at Martinsville over the last six races there.

“Martinsville is both a physical and emotional race,” Burton said. “I think it’s the longest feeling race that we run all year and I like that challenge … obviously some challenges are bigger than others. To me, that’s what our sport is all about. It’s about being difficult and trying to overcome obstacles and Martinsville is a pretty big obstacle to overcome.”

NASCAR’s 60th Anniversary Season Returns To One Of The Originals — Martinsville

The year was 1948 and the fledgling sport was NASCAR. That was the first season, with a 52-race schedule for mostly Modified machines, although there were the relatively sparse appearance of cars that would come to define NASCAR — the Strictly Stocks, precursor to today’s NASCAR Sprint Cup cars.

That schedule came to Martinsville Speedway, with an event on July 4. The speedway had actually opened a year earlier, with only 750 seats.

For the first installment of what would become one of NASCAR’s true traditions — racing on or around the July 4 holiday — Fonty Flock was the winner.

An ambitious gentleman by the name of Bill France, who also was NASCAR’s founder and first president, finished eighth.

Up Next: Samsung 500 At Texas Motor Speedway

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series moves on to Texas Motor Speedway next week, for the Samsung 500, set for Sunday, April 6.

Jeff Burton is the race’s defending champion. Jimmie Johnson won last year’s fall race at TMS, as part of his late-season charge to the series championship.

Burton also won the very first NASCAR Sprint Cup race at TMS, in 1997, driving then for Roush Fenway Racing. He is the only repeat winner in series history at TMS, with 14 races having been held there.

Burton is coming off the 20th win of his NASCAR Sprint Cup career, at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 16. That win was the first this season for his current owner, Richard Childress, and the first for Chevrolet overall in 2008.

The Race: GOODY’S COOL ORANGE 500
The Place: Martinsville Speedway
The Date: Sunday, March 30
The Time: 2 p.m. (ET)
The Track: .526-mile oval
The Distance: 500 laps/263 miles
TV: FOX, 1:30 p.m. (ET)
Radio: MRN, SIRIUS Satellite Radio
2007 Winner: Jimmie Johnson
2007 Polesitter: Jeff Gordon
2008 Points
    Driver                Points
 1 Kyle Busch           782
 2 Greg Biffle             752
 3 Kevin Harvick         749
 4 Jeff Burton             745
 5 Dale Earnhardt Jr.  686
 6 Kasey Kahne         674
 7 Tony Stewart         656
 8 Ryan Newman       635
 9 Clint Bowyer          606
10 Kurt Busch           605
11 Matt Kenseth        604
12 Martin Truex Jr.     595
Pre-Race Schedule: Friday—Practice, 12-1:30 p.m.; Qualifying, 3:40 p.m. Saturday—Practice, 11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.; Final Practice, 12:50 -1:50 p.m.

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