TONY STEWART -A Martinsville Elitist
KANNAPOLIS, N.C., (March 30, 2011) – Tony Stewart is part of an elite group. Believe it or not, it’s not because of his two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championships. Or 39 career Sprint Cup wins. Or 1997 IZOD IndyCar Series title. Or four USAC championships. No, it’s because he’s one of just four active drivers who have won at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway since 2003, a span of 16 races.
Stewart scored the second of his two career Sprint Cup wins at Martinsville on April 2, 2006. It was a rare sight, for since 2003, the only other active Sprint Cup drivers to visit Martinsville’s victory lane have been Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin. (Rusty Wallace, now retired and a NASCAR analyst for ESPN, scored his last Sprint Cup win at Martinsville on April 18, 2004.)
Gordon, a four-time Sprint Cup champion, turned Martinsville into Gordonville by sweeping the track’s two Sprint Cup races in 2003 and again in 2005. That run helped burnish Gordon’s legacy at the .526-mile oval, for he logged three previous Martinsville wins back in the late ‘90s.
Gordon’s domination, however, gave way to that of his Hendrick Motorsports teammate. Johnson, now the five-time and reigning series champion, gave a glimpse of his future stranglehold on the paperclip-shaped track when he won on Oct. 24, 2004. Since then, Johnson has scored five more Martinsville wins, including three straight from October 2006 through October 2007, and then back-to-back triumphs in October 2008 and March 2009.
But just as Johnson usurped Gordon’s dominance at Martinsville, another young hotshot is doing the same, making sure Johnsonville is known only for sausage.
Virginia native Denny Hamlin is the current King of Martinsville. He broke Johnson’s win streak when he took home one of Martinsville’s prized grandfather clocks after winning the March 2008 Sprint Cup race. And just as Johnson three-peated at Martinsville, Hamlin has done the same, winning the 2009 October race, the 2010 March race and the 2010 October race. Another Hamlin victory in Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 would surprise no one.
That being said, Stewart knows what it’s like to have the upper hand at Martinsville. In addition to his two wins, he has three poles and holds the track qualifying record of 19.306 seconds at 98.083 mph, set in October 2005. He also has six top-threes, eight top-fives, 13 top-10s and has led a total of 1,194 laps in 24 career Sprint Cup starts at Martinsville. Stewart’s laps led tally ranks him third among active drivers, behind only Gordon (2,944) and Johnson (1,551).
The driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil1 Chevrolet Impala for Stewart-Haas Racing is now a 13-year Sprint Cup veteran, and after logging 11,517 racing laps at Martinsville, Stewart knows a thing or two about the subtleties of the track’s tight and fast layout.
Come Sunday, expect to see the usual suspects up front, and expect Stewart – the last guy not named Johnson or Hamlin to win at Martinsville – to be one of them.