Back-to-back short track races are up next for the NASCAR Cup Series as Martinsville Speedway takes center stage this weekend, followed by Bristol Motor Speedway the week after Easter. Ryan Blaney and Brad Keselowski each have two Ford wins at the half-mile paperclip while Joey Logano has one win and five career poles.
THE SCHEDULE
- Saturday, March 28 – NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, 3:30 p.m. ET (CW)
- Sunday, March 29 – NASCAR Cup Series, 3:30 p.m. ET (FS1)
UP TO SPEED
KESELOWSKI MAKING 600TH START
Brad Keselowski will join an elite list as he becomes the 35th driver in NASCAR history to make 600 starts or more when he takes the green flag this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. Keselowski, who made his Cup debut in the 2008 Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway and finished 19th, has 36 career victories to rank 25th on NASCAR’s all-time list. From a Ford Racing perspective, Keselowski has posted 27 wins, including marquee races such as the Brickyard 400, Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500. Keselowski will become the second Ford driver in as many years to hit that milestone after Joey Logano reached it last year at Dover.
SITTING ON 749
The next Ford win will be its 750th all-time in NASCAR’s top series. Ned Jarrett is Ford’s win leader with 43 while Bill Elliott is second with 40. Shirtless Jimmy Florian scored the Blue Oval’s first series victory when he upset the likes of Lee Petty, Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly at Dayton Speedway on June 25, 1950. Florian earned his nickname after getting out of his 1950 flathead Ford without a shirt. Overall, 91 drivers have won at least one series race with Ford, including notable drivers Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Dale Earnhardt.
LOGANO LOOKING TO KEEP STREAK ALIVE
Only one other track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit has been better for Joey Logano when it comes to qualifying than Martinsville Speedway. Logano enters this weekend with an average starting position of 8.3 at the half-mile facility and is only bettered by his 8.2 average at Las Vegas. He has five poles, including three in a row in 2015-16, and had a streak of 18 straight top-10 starts (including races where qualifying was rained out) at one point. In 34 career races at Martinsville, Logano has an average finishing position of 10.6 and has been running at the finish of every event. He comes into Sunday’s race with a streak of 13 straight top-10 finishes.
THEY SAID IT
BRAD KESELOWSKI: “Martinsville is the smallest track that we race on full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series for points. It’s known as the paperclip because, quite honestly, it looks just like a paperclip from above, but it drives like two drag strips in a Walmart parking lot. You’ve got these really long straightaways and then two very tight corners. You’re super heavy on the brakes and there’s a lot of room for contact because generally there’s one groove around the bottom. There’s no other track like it in the Cup Series and it’s got a set of challenges.”
RYAN BLANEY: “Even though they’re the same length, they’re 180 different from each other. There’s a lot of shifting at Martinsville, and I feel while you’re chasing lanes at Bristol, there’s more brake technique at Martinsville. Bristol is a little bit more high speed and more commitment, where Martinsville is more of a patience kind of thing, so even though they’re the same length, there’s really nothing you can take from one to apply to the other.”
A LOOK BACK
BLANEY BURNS BRIGHT AT MARTINSVILLE
Ryan Blaney has a pair of Martinsville victories in the NASCAR Cup Series with both of them coming in the penultimate race of the season. Blaney was in need of a win in order to advance to the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 in 2024, and he got it after passing Chase Elliott with 14 laps remaining. In addition to earning his third win of the year, Blaney’s triumph was the 100th all-time Cup win for Team Penske with Ford. One year earlier, Blaney led a charge that saw four Ford Mustangs finish in the top five as he passed Aric Almirola with 23 laps remaining to win. Martinsville is one of five tracks where Blaney has multiple victories (Daytona, Talladega, Phoenix and Pocono).
KESELOWSKI WINS FIRST CLOCK
Brad Keselowski outdueled Kyle Busch down the stretch to win his first grandfather clock after capturing the STP 500 on Apr. 2, 2017. The two drivers waged a memorable battle that saw them swap the lead five times in the last 160 laps, but Keselowski ended up making the decisive pass on lap 458 and led the final 43 circuits to become the first repeat winner in 2017. Prior to winning at Martinsville, Keselowski took the checkered flag at Atlanta in the second race of the season.
PAST WINNERS
FORD NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS AT MARTINSVILLE
1961 – Fred Lorenzen (1)
1962 – Nelson Stacy (2)
1963 – Fred Lorenzen (2)
1964 – Fred Lorenzen (Sweep)
1965 – Fred Lorenzen and Junior Johnson
1966 – Fred Lorenzen (2)
1969 – Richard Petty (Sweep)
1986 – Ricky Rudd (1)
1990 – Geoffrey Bodine (Sweep)
1992 – Mark Martin and Geoffrey Bodine
1993 – Ernie Irvan (2)
1994 – Rusty Wallace (Sweep)
1995 – Rusty Wallace (1)
1996 – Rusty Wallace (1)
1997 – Jeff Burton (1)
1998 – Ricky Rudd (2)
2000 – Mark Martin (1)
2001 – Dale Jarrett and Ricky Craven
2002 – Kurt Busch (2)
2017 – Brad Keselowski (1)
2018 – Clint Bowyer and Joey Logano
2019 – Brad Keselowski (1)
2023 – Ryan Blaney (2)
2024 – Ryan Blaney (2)
FORD NOAPS SERIES WINNERS AT MARTINSVILLE
1994 – Kenny Wallace
