Martinsville - Not what I remember

By Jason Jarrett

I don’t write too many negative entries and I really hate to be that way this time but Martinsville was different than I remember it being. The races that I attended at Martinsville used to be exciting and full of good solid racing but from my view yesterday did not appear to have much of that.

It might be that I am a lot older now. It might be that when I was a kid going there I only paid attention to the last one hundred laps or so. Many times we (other driver’s sons) would be hanging around in the infield so we did not even pay attention until the end of the race was near. It might be that my job now is to basically keep one car and one driver out of trouble and that takes away some of the sensation of it being a good race. I don’t know the answer but the race just seemed to be boring and follow the leader. That is, until the guy trying to make a pass gets impatient and knocks the car in front of him out of the way. This usually causes about the 4^th or 5^th car in line to get the most damage as a chain reaction in set off. I just don’t think that is great racing.

Some of my thoughts and suggestions go something like this. My first thought is to shorten the race to 400 laps or maybe even less. There are many races that could be shortened. Every race just seems to have that period where people are just logging laps and not really racing so maybe if the races were shorter it would help that situation. Maybe this is my imagination but I know when I watch from home I can take a break from the race and rejoin with a hundred laps or 100 miles to go and not feel like I missed too much. Sure, I am going to miss a wreck or two but I don’t watch to see that. I watch to see who is battling for positions. The next thing that I would do is work on a different tire for Martinsville. The tires don’t really give up (wear out) so a person on 100 lap tires can run just as fast as a person that just put a new set on. This might be good for some tracks but not for Martinsville. The guys that put tires on can’t even make progress. It is fun to see guys come through the pack. Yesterday it was just swapping positions on pit sequences. At least that is what I saw. Maybe this progressive banking thing would work for Martinsville. I don’t know I am just throwing out things that popped into my mind yesterday. There was not a second groove so this idea came to me as I watched some faster cars not able to make progress because everyone had to run the same line.

Again, I don’t know the answers. I am sure there are many of you that loved the race. That is one of the great things about this sport. I can see something one way and the rest of you see it different. At the end of the day we are going to watch again next week and the week after. We may even flip on our views next week: I will love the race and you might hate it. So, until next time, I will leave you with this from the Martinsville race.

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