Rate The Race: Martinsville II

7.5
Before the 28-lap caution the race was quite boring with 3 Gibbs cars turning laps at the top with an Advantage of nearly 5 seconds over everyone else.
But after the caution the race was quite exciting with JJ taking the lead and Keselowski making his way through the field.
 
A not so great race at Martinsville beats a good race at most other tracks. If I ignore the fiasco I think the race deserves an 8.
 
7.5

Disappointing, worst Martinsville race I've ever watched, but it happens I guess. Still better than just about any other NASCAR race.
 
7.5

Disappointing, worst Martinsville race I've ever watched, but it happens I guess. Still better than just about any other NASCAR race.

I think that is the main point to keep in mind as although this was not the best Martinsville race it is still far better than most of the races Nascar holds.
 
It was a pretty good race. Lots of green flag racing - kind of unusual for Martinsville. But I do have an issue with teammates manipulating the restarts. The Penske team did it last year and the Gibbs group did it today (fortunately there were few cautions). NASCAR had an odd situation with scoring, I'm surprised it took them so long to figure it out with all the aids they have and they still messed it up a bit.
 
It was a pretty good race. Lots of green flag racing - kind of unusual for Martinsville. But I do have an issue with teammates manipulating the restarts. The Penske team did it last year and the Gibbs group did it today (fortunately there were few cautions). NASCAR had an odd situation with scoring, I'm surprised it took them so long to figure it out with all the aids they have and they still messed it up a bit.
Nothing new about that. Well, nothing new about it since the double-file restart was implemented. Prior to that, the equivalent practice was slowing down to let your lap-down teammate beat you to the caution flag. Either way, trading places to let your buddy get a lap-leader point is as old as multi-car teams.
 
8.5 I dont think the scoring fiasco or the Jimmy Johnson caution at lap 200 took anything away from the racing except for the 20+ laps lost. With another 20 laps of racing Kez and Jimmy might have made a race of it in the end. Good racing!!
 
6. Something has to be deducted for the ridiculous 28 lap caution where they still got the order wrong.
 
Just out or curiosity how did they get it wrong?

For one thing, there is no way Harvick was one-lap down. He was a lap down before pitting, and lost two laps to the leaders while on pit road. With the Wave Around, he should have been two laps down. As a Harvick fan, I follow him most closely, but I'm pretty sure others got back laps they didn't deserve as well.

I'm not sure if it was incompetence on the part of nascar who a fear of having three lead lap cars...
 
For one thing, there is no way Harvick was one-lap down. He was a lap down before pitting, and lost two laps to the leaders while on pit road. With the Wave Around, he should have been two laps down. As a Harvick fan, I follow him most closely, but I'm pretty sure others got back laps they didn't deserve as well.

I'm not sure if it was incompetence on the part of nascar who a fear of having three lead lap cars...
Thank you for the explanation....once nascar decided they needed a half hour to figure it out I started flipping between the race and football and didn't fully understand what was going on.....I kinda figured some people were gifted a lap back because of the confusion.
 
10. To be the man, you have to beat the man. My guys didn't. Funny how this Chase format spawns weird one off winners....isn't it?
 
10. To be the man, you have to beat the man. My guys didn't. Funny how this Chase format spawns weird one off winners....isn't it?

Shrub said that JGR gave JJ the win but it sounds like you don't see it that way. True?

IDK who you were referring to as the man JJ needed to beat but I hope it wasn't Shrub as has 38 wins and 145 top 5's in 423 races and JJ has 79 wins and 217 top 5's in 540 races and lets not even speak of the prickly subject of championships as it just gets plain ugly.
 
My rating 5.5. That includes a deduction of 1.5 for the Nascar scoring SNAFU. Martinsville often conjures up images of a horse race on a merry-go-round, going in circles all day but rarely changing positions. And occasional images of roller derby, which is how changes in position finally occur. That can be interesting, except when the main protagonists are points racing, like they were yesterday.

I like short tracks as a change-of-pace diversion. I'm glad there are not more of 'em on the Cup schedule. The heart and soul of Cup racing is the fast intermediate tracks. I am aware that is a minority opinion, but so be it. The problem with the fast intermediates *until recently* has been a misguided high downforce approach, attempting to create close racing by making the cars easy to drive fast through aero rules. But since the dawn of the lower downforce era, the fast intermediate tracks have produced a lot of glorious skill-based racing. I wish more fans understood and appreciated the nuances of racing on the fast tracks, rather than being jazzed only by the beatin' and bangin' and wreckin' on short tracks. Just my $0.02.
 
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