History of Martinsville Speedway

Martinsville Speedway is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Martinsville, Virginia. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved "superspeedways" in NASCAR, being built in 1947 by H. Clay Earles. The track is often referred to as paper clip-shaped and is banked only 12° in the turns. The combination of long straightaways and flat, narrow turns makes hard braking going into turns and smooth acceleration exiting turns a must.

The track ownership was a joint venture of brothers Jim and Bill France, Jr., and H. Clay Earles, the majority owner, along with daughters Dorothy Campbell and Mary Weatherford, and Dorothy Campbell's children, Sarah Fain and Clay Campbell.

The track was sold exclusively to the France family for $192 million in 2004 as a result of an estate sale following the death of Weatherford.

Plans existed to add an additional 20,000 seats along the back stretch, boosting capacity to over 85,000 seats, but nothing more has been officially mentioned regarding this by track management since the sale of the track to ISC.

Currently, Martinsville hosts two Nextel Cup races - the Goody's Cool Orange 500 in April and the Subway 500 (round six of the Chase for the Cup) in October - along with Craftsman Truck Series, Whelen Modified Tour which is Labor day weekend under the lights, and Late Model races.

From 1982 until 1994, and again in a one-off in 2006, the speedway hosted Busch Series events. This occurred first with 200- and 150-lap features (200 laps for the two races with Whelen Modifieds, 150 laps with the September Winston/Nextel Cup race), then 300 laps from 1992 until 1994 as part of a Late Model/Busch Series doubleheader, and 250 laps in the one-off in 2006. The venue was dropped from the Busch Series schedule for 2007 and a race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal will be run on the open date.