Old-Timer Dominates NASCAR News

Apr 19 2004

Pot hole in 28 year old concrete brings racing to a halt

Martinsville Speedway is the only original NASCAR track that is still running NEXTEL Cup events. She has seen action from NASCAR's top-level series since 1949 and has never really changed.

On Sunday the old girl showed her age when a significant pot hole developed in the concrete. That pot hole caused a red flag which halted competition for over an hour while track crews patched the track surface.

The concrete in the inside groove was put down in 1976 while the outside lane came five years later. Who knows how many millions of times that chunk of concrete was driven over in its twenty-eight year life? It finally gave in.

Interestingly, Martinsville Speedway is planning on repaving the track this year before the fall race. However only the asphalt portions of the track will be redone. This includes the straightaways and the far outside runoff area in the turns where there were no problems on Sunday.

What will they do with the broken concrete? Speedway officials intend to cut out a square where the patch was poured on Sunday and patch it with a proper concrete mix, but the rest of the original concrete surface will continue to get run over, and over, and over.

I can understand not wanting to mess with the track that has displayed such good racing over the last couple of years but clearly the concrete needs some attention beyond a patch.

What happens next time when that chunk of concrete flies up and hits a driver? Worse yet, what if it hits a fan?

I love short track racing and Martinsville Speedway is a great example of what good racing can be. I hate to see a great race track have its reputation tarnished because the track surface itself is aging. This is a fixable problem and clearly needs to be addressed.