This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Martinsville for the eighth race of the season.  Coverage of the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 begins with NASCAR RaceDay at 7 p.m, while the green flag should fly around 7:45.  Make note that the pre-race coverage runs against the end of the Houston Astros-Oakland Athletics game.  There's a decent chance that the game goes beyond 7 p.m., cutting into pre-race coverage.  If any schedule changes result from this, we will keep you updated.  Radio coverage will be provided by local MRN radio affiliates and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).

Records and facts

Last year's Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 was run on a Wednesday night.  It was a competitive affair with some drivers you don't necessarily see up front running well at times.

Martin Truex Jr. came into his own late in the race.  He passed Brad Keselowski for the lead on lap 370 and did not surrender it en route to the win.  He ended up 4.705 seconds ahead of Ryan Blaney at the finish.  Keselowski was third, then Joey Logano and Chase Elliott.

With Jimmie Johnson's retirement from Cup at the end of last year, Denny Hamlin is the winningest active driver at Martinsville with five career victories.  Truex, the Busch brothers and Keselowski each have two.

All-time, Richard Petty is the leader with 15 career victories.  Darrell Waltrip has 11 Martinsville victories, then Jeff Gordon and Johnson with nine. Rusty Wallace has seven wins and could have had an eighth if he didn't get black-flagged for jumping the final restart from the lead in the 1997 Hanes 500.  Three other drivers (Cale Yarborough, Dale Earnhardt and Fred Lorenzen) have six wins each.

Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 0.526-mile oval, 500 laps (263 miles)
Banking: 12 degrees

Straightaways: 800 ft., flat

Grandstand Seating: 55,000

Pit Road Speed: 30 mph
Pace Car Speed: 35 mph
Opened: 1947 (first Cup race in the inaugural season, 1949)

Website: http://www.martinsvillespeedway.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinsvilleSpeedway

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MartinsvilleSwy

Say What?!

"Martinsville is probably one of my worst tracks – it’s been the toughest for me to figure out since there are so many challenges there. It’s a different style than what I grew up racing. You’re hard on the brakes and you need to be consistent with that while hitting your marks lap after lap. It’s such a challenge to do all that and keep up with the changing lines throughout the race. Hopefully, someday I can win a Martinsville clock." - Kyle Larson

"I think short track racing at Martinsville Speedway with the lights is going to be awesome. NASCAR Cup Series cars, and especially our No. 47 Kroger/Crest Chevrolet, look better under the lights and we know fans love seeing the sparks fly. Martinsville always has a lot of contact and beating and banging so going into it expecting that I think is half the battle. Martinsville is not typically my favorite track, but we’re on a really strong momentum swing right now with strong runs at Bristol and Atlanta so I’m looking forward to racing after a week off and keeping that going." - Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

"Our short track program has been a major focus for our shop the last few weeks, and it’ll be in full display the next couple weeks. A lot goes into being successful at Martinsville, especially with the brakes and simply keeping your best stuff for late in the race. We were solid in two of the last three events up there, so our hope is to keep the momentum we do have and put together a good day in our Guaranteed Rate Ford." - Ryan Newman

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of NASCAR Media.

Thursday night was the season opener for the Whelen Modified Tour at Martinsville Speedway.  The Virginia Is For Racing Lovers 200 was the Modifieds' first appearance at Martinsville since 2010 and it seemed like it.

The big story at the beginning of the night was that Justin Bonsignore had a water leak and ultimately had to drop to the rear of the field for the start.  He charged up like gangbusters from there to put himself in contention for the win.  I'm not sure what actually happened, but the announcers said that he was late to the grid.  This water leak was only acknowledged before the green flag came out.  For the rest of the race, it was referred to as "unapproved adjustments" as to why he had to start in the rear.  

I am personally against the use of that term in NASCAR.  I want to know what specifically happened.  As you can imagine, this is far from exclusive to the Whelen Modified Tour.  If I ran NASCAR, that would be the first thing I'd abolish.  If you're giving up your starting spot to go to the rear, I believe that the fans deserve to know exactly why you're doing it.

For Whelen Modified Tour broadcasts, NBC Sports' TrackPass often uses local PA announcers to call the race.  In this case it was Tim Calafamo and Joey Self on the call.  These guys are not really knowledgeable about Modified racing.  They spent much of the evening butchering names and honestly sounding like a couple of greenhorns masquerading as experts.

I'm not the only person that noticed this.  Race Day CT's Shawn Courchesne, who has spent years covering the racing scene in Connecticut (read: The Modified scene), wrote a column today blasting the broadcast.

Having looked through the article, I do agree with a number of Courchesne's points.  In regards to the pronunciation issues, he wrote, "the broadcasters calling Thursday’s race should have taken five minutes and went to a series official and said 'Can you tell us the pronunciation of each driver in tonight’s field?' It’s literally that simple to do."

The pronunciation issues make me think back to when TQ Midget racer Andy Jankowiak competed in the ARCA season opener in Daytona back in February and how his name was butchered on FOX Sports 1 multiple times.  The same arguments came up.  Problem is, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it can be very difficult to get a proper pronunciation.  They can't ask the drivers themselves since they can't get into the pits, it's the Whelen Modified Tour, so there's not going to be a list of PR reps you can consult, and good luck being able to talk to a series official right now.  They're in a box that won't go away this year.  That said, Thursday night's on-air performance did lean towards not necessarily caring as much.  I've never met former racer (and now crew chief) Jan Leaty before.  I'm pretty sure that I could pronounce his first name correctly, though.

Having said that, the name butchering is not the only thing that stood out about this broadcast.  The biggest to me is the fact that I got lost here.  Things happened that had no explanation.  For instance, I stated above that Preece led the first 110 laps.  He ended up finishing a lap down in 12th.  How did that happen?  I didn't have a clue watching the broadcast.

Taking a second look indicates that the car fell off the jack on his second pit stop under caution (the pit rules for this race were rather confusing and annoying; simply put, it's a conversation for another time).  Not catching the pack before his second stop really cost him.  As a result, his crew couldn't finish the stop before the pace car came back around.  Here's the thing, Self and Calafamo never mentioned it.  You couldn't tell that Preece didn't beat the pace car out because the cameras didn't show that.

I really don't know what happened to Anthony Nocella.  He was fourth on a late restart, then ended up six laps down.  That stinks, especially since he had recovered from an early crash to get there.

I'll admit that our own Office Hours here at Frontstretch ran up against the start of the race.  As a result, I had to go back and watch the start of the telecast from the start.  The broadcast replay that is currently available on TrackPass starts in the middle of the starting lineup.

Generally speaking, Justin Bonsignore's charge from the rear was the main story of the race as far as the commentators were concerned.  And yes, it was a big story.  But, it wasn't the only one.

NASCAR Cup Series regulars Ryan Preece and Ryan Newman started from the pole, but had very different races.  Preece led the first 110 laps Thursday night and didn't yield the lead until Bonsignore took it away on lap 111.

Newman's car just wasn't on pace all night.  Early in the race, he jammed up the field exiting turn 4.  That resulted in Ron Silk getting spun out in front of the field and creating a road block.  Later on, Newman was forced to retire from the race due to some kind of engine issue.

The race barely got underway before it rained, resulting in a red flag.  There was no coverage from Martinsville during the delay.  Viewers on TrackPass just got a graphic saying "We are currently delayed due to weather" and no sound.  I kept the window open and sound on, which allowed me to jump back in when they returned.

Updates from the track were few and far between.  TrackPass does operate a Twitter feed, but they don't update much.

Coverage of on-track action was mainly front-centered.  There was decent racing up there, but that wasn't the only action out there.  If there was an incident, there were no replays.  If they didn't catch it live, then you had to guess what happened.  That stinks, especially in a race where a couple of drivers (Jon McKennedy specifically, but also Dave Sapienza) took some big hits.

In addition, there was no pit reporter available.  As a result, you didn't get any additional information for viewers to gain better understanding of what was going on.  This was far from the ARCA Menards Series East opener, where they had Jessie Punch in the pits.  She did well back then.

Post-race coverage was...absolutely nil.  The broadcast actually ended before winner Eric Goodale got out of the car for his victory lane interview.  That's weak as heck.  The chaps at NASCAR Roots did post this short interview with Goodale on their website for your consumption.

This broadcast is not a good way to promote the Whelen Modified Tour.  As you probably know, the series has die-hard fans and 35 cars started the race (40 entered, but a bad weather forecast resulted in five withdrawals, including Bobby Labonte).  In the future, I hope that NASCAR and NBC Sports do better for the sanctioning body's sole open wheel division.

There is a TV broadcast for this race.  It will be Wednesday night (April 14) at 5 p.m. on NBCSN.  The broadcast, which lasted over three hours (including the rain delay) will be cut down to one.  Hopefully, that will be better to watch and more informative than this live stream was.