Martinsville Race Review and Anaylsis
For its 75th year as a race track, Nascar makes its return to Martinsville Speedway! Located in Ridgeway, Virginia this half-mile short track put on quite the rodeo for Saturday night racing. William Byron in a hard-fought way takes home the checkered flag. This is Byron’s 4th career win and 2nd of the 2022 season. Byron now becomes the only driver to win multiple races this season.
(William Byron taking the checkered flag)
Hendrick Motorsports led the way all night long. Besides William Byron and Chase Elliott, there were two other leaders tonight. Those two were Austin Dillon and Ryan Blaney, both led under 6 laps. Elliott led the first 185 laps tonight, which hasn’t been done since Darell Waltrip in 1980 at Martinsville. Fellow teammate William Byron led 212 laps for his first career win at Martinsville. This is Hendrick Motorsports' 74th career win in Martinsville and fourth win this season.
(William Byron in Victory Lane)
Notable performances tonight came from William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, and Kurt Busch. William Byron, today’s winner, won two out of the three national series Martinsville events. Byron won the Truck Series race on Thursday and now is the Cup Series winner tonight. Ryan Blaney in his last three races hasn’t finished worse than 7th. Blaney comes home 4th tonight as he is a person to look out for this season. Austin Dillon had a career night by running in the top five for all of the final stage. Dillon ran more laps in the top five tonight than he has in his entire career. Dillon comes home 3rd as momentum is certainly on his side leaving Martinsville. Joey Logano was another driver who ran up front for most of the race. Logano contented for second as the laps winded down, he finished 2nd. Aric Almirola was another driver who had a stellar performance. His #10 machine put up quite the battle tonight as they had a good finish of 8th. Finally, Kurt Busch, the Cup Series veteran, ran consistently all night. After troubles at Circuit of The Americas and Richmond, this finish was needed. Busch ran in the top ten for a large part of tonight. He gained some much-needed ground in the standings tonight and finished 6th.
Penalties were something that hurt a lot of strong teams tonight. Christopher Bell, Cole Custer, and Kyle Larson were all recipients of these costly mishaps. Christopher Bell, having his best performance all year, was hit with a penalty on pit road. Projected to have a top-five finish, Bell’s #20 crew was over the wall too soon. Bell was then put in the rear of the field leading to the #20 being in a hole for the remainder of the race. Another team that was headed to a great result was Cole Custer and the #41 team. Running all of stage 1 in the top 10, Cole Custer’s team had an uncontrolled tire on a key pit stop. Custer ran 185 laps in the top 5, the #41 car came home 21st. Shifting the race with five laps to go was Todd Gilliand. Gilliand locked up his right front tire leading him up high into the wall. This bunched the field back up leading to another overtime finish. Byron held off both Logano and Dillon for the race win.
In my opinion, tonight’s race was mediocre. A Lot of fans consider this race a let down, as this Martinsville race was a bit disappointing. Drivers voiced their opinions during post-race interviews about how hard it was to pass. This race started under a delay as the weather was threatening all weekend. The green flag didn't wave until close to 8:30pm ET. Fans expected more action tonight but that didn’t come to fruition. The Bristol Dirt race next weekend should be a thriller as that is up next. Taking all action into consideration from tonight, I'd rate today’s action a 7.5 out of 10.
( A look at the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt)
With the 9th race of the season up next, we head to Bristol Motor Speedway. For a second consecutive year, Nascar will hold a race on the Bristol dirt! Located in Bristol, Tennessee, this race put on a show last year. Hopefully, better weather is on our hands as we head into Easter weekend. Both the Truck and Cup Series will hit the dirt this weekend as one of the most highly anticipated races of the season is here. Practice and qualifying will be Friday afternoon with both races taking place under the lights. The Truck race will be Saturday night April 16th, followed up by the Cup race on Easter Sunday night on the 17th. With dirt races come heat qualifying races, meaning qualifying won’t look the same. Drivers will be split up into four groups as they hit the dirt to determine where they’ll start for the main event. Retired all-time Nascar legend Darrell Waltrip will make his return to the broadcast booth this weekend. This will be his first time in the booth since his retirement after the 2019 season. The man who is famous for his “boogity boogity let’s go racing boys” will be back as the next guest analyst for Fox Sports. Chad Kanus provided excellent insight as a former crew chief in the booth for the last two races. For dirt racing in Bristol tune in Sunday, April 17th at 7:00pm for the Food City Dirt Race only on FOX.
( All images credited to https://www.foxsports.com/nascar/cup-series.)
For next week's race information please view the link down below:
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