Rating the Race: Martinsville

Crashing, banging, and traffic jams galore.  Yes, ladies and gents, what I just described was quite simply what us racing fans like to refer to as Martinsville, and this weekend’s race in Virginia certainly lived up to that reputation.

Recap:

- Jeff Gordon leads the field from the pole position to begin the race.

- Tony Stewart started the race from deep in the field (34th position), but made up a lot of ground about quarter of the way through the race.  He made contact on a few occasions with his good friend, Dale Earnhardt Jr, who actually took a swipe at “Smoke” under caution.  Stewart was later involved in a crash in the last 50 laps of the race with Carl Edwards. Stewart was able to hang on for a 13th place finish.

- Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran solidly in the top 10 almost the entire day until an engine failure on the green-white-checkered restart sent him from 7th to 23rd on the final lap.

- Greg Biffle started the race from the 37th position, but due to some magnificent pit strategy early in the race, was able to bring home a 7th place finish at a track that Greg has struggled with his entire career.

- Juan Pablo Montoya led 16 laps en route to an eighth place finish in only his second trip to Martinsville.

- Martin Truex Jr continued to struggle at Martinsville.  He started on the outside pole, but after a series of wrecks and spins, managed to translate it into only a 19th place finish.

- Ryan Newman got hearts racing for the second week in a row. This week, however, Ryan wasn’t the cause of the green-white-checkered ending.  Newman was side-by-side with eventual race winner Jimmie Johnson when David Ragan spun to bring out the final caution of the day.

- Martinsville saw a record 21 caution flags this Sunday.

Results:

1. Jimmie Johnson

2. Ryan Newman

3. Jeff Gordon

4. Kyle Busch

5. Matt Kenseth

6. Denny Hamlin

7. Greg Biffle

8. Juan Pablo Montoya

9. Clint Bowyer

10. Kevin Harvick

Race Rating: 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5)