NASCAR Martinsville Spring Recap

It was an action-packed weekend at the famous paperclip-shaped track in Virginia, as the Trucks, Xfinity, and Cup Series all took a turn at the historic Martinsville Speedway.

The truck series race was plagued with rain and delays, prompting for NASCAR to try running on rain tires in a damp situation. For the first time, NASCAR ran rain tires on an oval, and despite that the tires could not run in the rain. They could only run in a wet/damp situation and not continuously rain. The race was shortened on lap 124 of the 200 scheduled laps due to rain, which gave Corey Heim his first win of the season, leading 82 of the 124 laps. 

“This race was cut short and that’s definitely unfortunate, but this truck was fast all night,” Heim said after the race was called. “I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys.”

“I bring a 100% effort to every race every week so to be able to sit here and have it pay off is phenomenal,” Heim added, who also swept both stages.

He was cheering on for the rain to keep falling as it wasn’t an easy battle. Heim had to deal with Kyle Busch, who was chasing Kyle Busch Motorsports’ 100^th win. Not only just Busch, but Heim had to hold off defending series champion Zane Smith as well. 

“We just didn’t have a good enough short-run truck,” said Busch after the race. “Being a little bit loose and free that we were, we were hoping that would pay off in the long run but never had a long run. The longest run of the race was on rain tires. It did not go our way today, unfortunately.”

While Kyle Busch finished in second, Zane Smith was third, while Ty Majeski and Tanner Gray, Heim’s teammate, finished fourth and fifth. Ben Rhodes, Matt DiBenedetto, Taylor Gray, William Sawalich and Chase Purdy rounded out the top 10. At the age of 16, this was also Sawalich’s Craftsman Truck Series debut, leading him to an impressive ninth-place finish and adding on to TRICON Garage’s four top ten finishes.

As for the Xfinity Series, it was a dominating performance that led to the second win of the season for John Hunter Nemechek. Nemechek led for 198 of the 250 laps and swept both stages in the Call811.com Before You Dig 250 at Martinsville, edging out teammate Sammy Smith. 

As Nemechek did a burnout where he literally set the track on fire for a brief moment and to cap off a dominating performance, he also scored the $100,000 reward in the Dash 4 Cash.

“I can’t say enough about this whole team, if you would have asked me yesterday if we would have won, I thought we were a 10th-place car in practice,” said Nemechek,  after the race. “Just grateful the guys made the right adjustments. Let’s celebrate.”

Cole Custer finished third, while Josh Berry, who led for 27 laps, finished fourth, and Berry’s teammate Brandon Jones finished fifth. Justin Allgaier finished sixth, and Daniel Hemric, Derek Kraus, Brett Moffitt, and Chandler Smith rounded out the top ten.

As for the Cup Series, Kyle Larson was able to take advantage of a late two-tire pit stop that gave him what he needed to run away with this second win of the season, finally earning a grandfather clock. Larson was able to make the pass for the lead with 30 laps to go and was able to hold off defending Cup Series Champion Joey Logano by 4.142 seconds. Larson joins teammate William Byron for having multiple wins this season.

“I feel like Cliff [Daniels, his crew chief] and everybody did a great job all day on pit road, making the right calls and having great pit stops and it all kind of worked out for me there at the end, we had a great car, that was the best my car had been,” said Larson after the race.

Joey Logano was one of four drivers who did not pit on a caution flag with 56 laps left in the race, choosing to take track position instead after he went down a lap not once but twice earlier in the afternoon.

“Solid recovery for what the start of the race looked like,” Logano said, “stayed out at the end when everyone pitted, which put us on the front row and had a shot to win the race.”

“I tried to hold off Larson as long as I could. But overall there are some days when you’re mad about second. Today’s not one of those.”

Martin Truex Jr and Denny Hamlin finished third and fourth, while Chase Briscoe finished fifth. Aric Almirola, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Bubba Wallace, and Chase Elliott rounded out the top ten. Elliott made his first start since suffering a broken leg in a snowboarding accident seven weeks ago.

The truck series is off next weekend while the Xfinity and Cup Series head to Talladega.