Martinsville.
There isn’t a track on the circuit I enjoyed more. There isn’t a track on the schedule that better represents our heritage as a sport.
The half-mile paperclip-shaped short track, almost exclusively, symbolizes how we all became race car drivers, and it symbolizes how NASCAR was formed, created, sprouted into formation.
It is, in my view, the purest form of auto racing.
Pure because the influences of aerodynamics barely exist, there won’t be any aero push on Sunday. Pure because it’s a track requiring drivers to use both feet with precision, not just your right. Pure because the most horsepower won’t guarantee you an advantage. As tires become worn on this track, horsepower becomes a liability.
When I reflect on my favorite racing memories, I always go back to the one day in my life that time stood still. It was a Monday in October 2001, a day I had dreamed of my entire life, I day I had worked toward since fist strapping into a race car at the age of 15 in 1982.
That moment happened as I drove under the checkered flag at Martinsville, Virginia, adding my name to NASCAR cup winners.
The first to congratulate me was Tommy Baldwin, current car owner for Regan Smith. Why I remember so well is this. Baldwin and I grew up together, but hardly knew one another.
I competed throughout New England and Canada in full-bodied race cars, He did the same with his dad, but touring the Modified series.
Baldwin had moved from New York to Charlotte to work with me in my second season of NASCAR Winston Cup racing. We became and remain very close friends.
Baldwin never told me this, he didn’t have to, as he hurdled the pit wall sprinting toward me, as my eyes connected with him approaching, his right fist clinched, swinging high above his head, I acknowledged his message loud and clear, in spite of not hearing a word he had said.
His message? You won! But more importantly, you won at the appropriate place!
Yes, yes indeed. My life is and has been dominated by auto racing, but within that definition lay my true love.
Short track racing!
All of this said, I would not have become a race car driver without being exposed as a child to the local tracks, and those that fostered my ambitions. Sitting in the grandstands I watched drivers like Butch Lindley circle the track with precision. He was, without question the smoothest I had ever seen on a race track one-half mile or smaller.
In the middle of each set of turns, Mr. Lindley would separate himself from the car behind by a few feet, while gaining on those in front by the same amount. He made passes a piece at a time, methodically driving inside and out, while never allowing the car to appear out of balance.
He drove like a conductor of an orchestra, always in sync, seldom stealing all the attention, always in the front and always in control.
Butch Lindley was the best I had ever seen.
Others I would put in his category that I also watched compete are Robbie Crouch, Dave Dion, Mike Rowe, Harry Gant, and Rusty Wallace.
The first three you may not recognize, the last two you absolutely should.
What separates these five from Lindley is I also competed against them. I witnessed their abilities, but I also experienced their talents.
Crouch, Dion, and Rowe taught me how to be fast through the center of the turns, how to transition from accelerator to the brake pedal. They demonstrated at tracks all over the Northeast, how to be fast, but also how to manage your equipment.
All three are exceptional on small tracks, and shine the brightest at tracks one-third mile and shorter.
Gant and Wallace are two I would put at the head of the class once North Carolina became my home.
There are several very good short-track race-car drivers, and they could win often at a given track.
What separated these two was their ability to win at them all, and what makes the story even more interesting is they had completely opposite driving styles, yet equally effective.
Gant would never show his best until it mattered most, that being the final 25 percent of the race. He also had a better definition of his limits in a race car or on a race track than any driver I ever competed against.
When you raced beside Gant, he would leave you the width of your car and two inches to work with. That’s an inch between your left side and his right, and an inch between your right side and the wall.
That is why it took so many laps to pass him, if you were so fortunate, because you rolled out of the gas the first few laps thinking you were destined to flat-side your race car, then you built the courage to trust you had the room, then you went to work, lap after lap side by side, inches apart.
Gant was among the most underrated drivers in NASCAR history, but not by me. He was amazing.
Equally good, but with a completely different approach was Wallace.
Better than anyone I ever competed against, Rusty could squeeze every ounce of speed from a car on any short track. Again, many drivers have had success at Martinsville, Richmond or Bristol, but Wallace was dominant at all three, year after year.
Wallace could swing the car from the top of the track on corner entry, to below the white line entering the middle of the turn. Unlike Gant, who employed a global positioning device approach to his driving, Wallace was a point-an- shoot driver. He was a master at rotating his car (changing direction) then powering up off the corner exit.
It’s as though Gant used all four tires to get in and out of each sets of turns, while Wallace used both fronts to get the car in, and both rear tires to drive the car off.
Wallace executed a short-track turn as though it was shaped like a diamond, and Gant drove short tracks as though they were all shaped like a circle.
I could talk short track racing all day every day, and I know some of you won’t agree with a few of the names i put at the top of my list, but isn’t that part of why Sunday’s race is so special, so unique from all others?
We seldom enter into debates over who was your favorite intermediate track driver, or who was the greatest you ever saw on a two-mile track.
It’s because there are thousands and thousands of drivers who have influenced all of us, led us to choosing auto racing as our favorite sport.
And most of those drivers, if not all, did that at a short track. A track very much like Martinsville.
