It’s the small track that doesn’t live up to its billing: Richmond and Bristol can — but sometimes don’t — provide the quality racing that the 1.5-mile cookie cutters often lack.
Martinsville’s paper-clip layout is enough that there’s really only one groove; to fall outside means you’ll watch positions roll by with the rhythm of a metronome. (Set it for 40.)
The race is less about strategy and more about survival. Stay up front, keep the fenders as clean as possible, and hope you’re in a good position in the final 10 laps. That’s not good racing; strategy should be far more flexible than that.
And it’ll be the second COT race, too. Maybe racing with the COT will get better. But to think of what it did to racing at Bristol last week and to try to project it to Martinsville ... man, that ain’t pretty.
• DOWN AT RIR, they’re a little busy at the moment with Busch series testing. Public relations director Keith Green was presumably busy too, so we’ll catch up with him when we can about the track’s ongoing preparations for the May race.
I promised weekly updates, and thought it deserved an explanation.
• I DIDN’T MEAN TO STEAL Kris Johnson’s headline. Obviously, it’s more than a little similar to my entry yesterday.
I tried to track down times, and the first comment on his blog was three hours before I posted mine. So he definitely didn’t borrow anything from me.
We made different points, anyway.