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Observations | Hello?! The fat lady was singing

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Sunday, Oct. 21, 2007

Some observations on Sunday's race from David Poole of The Charlotte Observer and ThatsRacin.com:

There were a few people rabble-rousing after the race, trying to drum up controversy about whether NASCAR should keep trying until it gets a green-white-checkered. That’s ridiculous. You can’t keep piling laps onto the end of a race.

The first race Rick Hendrick came to with his father was at Martinsville, but three years ago on this weekend 10 people, including Hendrick’s son, Ricky, and brother, John, died in the crash of a Hendrick team plane on the way here. “It’s hard to come up here,” Hendrick said. “But it’s better to be here than to be at home. ... As soon as I walk in here and get with the guys, they are my family, too. I am with people who care about us. We can’t undo what was done. ... We miss all of those folks.”

Surely nobody believes that Jeff Gordon can just coast to the championship from here. Early in Sunday’s race, he had a loose lug nut on a pit stop and had to come back in. When he got back on track, he was 33rd. Had that on his last pit stop, what would that have done to the title race? One mistake, literally, still is all it takes.

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MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY

TRACK FACTS
Date opened: 1947
First major NASCAR-sanctioned event: Virginia 500, 5/20/56
Qualifying record: Ryan Newman, 97.043 mph (19.513 sec.), 10/22/04
Race record: Jeff Gordon, 82.223 mph, Sept. 22, 1996
Owner: W. Clay Campbell
President: W. Clay Campbell
Phone: (540) 956-3151
Tickets: (540) 956-3151
Shipping address:
US Business 220 South
Martinsville, VA 24112
Mailing address:
PO Box 3311
Martinsville, VA 24115

TRACK CONFIGURATION
Distance: .526-mile oval
Banking in turns 1-4: 12 degrees
Banking on straights: None
Length of frontstretch: 800 feet
Length of backstretch: 800 feet
Grandstand seating: 91,000
Miles/laps: 263 miles, 500 laps