Insider's View: Wally Dallenbach

The Winston Cup Series goes from the longest track on the schedule in Talladega to the smallest at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday. We're right back to the bumping and beating we saw at Bristol a couple weeks ago, folks. It should be exciting.

	Expect anything at Martinsville. Credit: Autostock

Martinsville is a tough little racetrack. It's a big paper clip with very long straightaways and tight turns. It's like going down a drag strip on both the front and backstretch and then all of a sudden you pound on the brakes when you dive into the turns.

Brakes always get a workout at Martinsville because you're on them so hard, so much during 500 laps. You have to hope they hold out and we've seen many a race lost when a guy's brakes just finally give up.

Martinsville also has two different surfaces to deal with. The straightaways are asphalt but the turns are concrete, so it takes a little getting used to especially on cold tires. Until those tires get some laps on them and heat up they won't grip as well going through the corners so it gets a little tricky, especially with 42 other cars all around you.

You want to get down on the bottom on the track as you go through the corners as well, right down against the curb on the inside. But you have to be careful you don't get down too low and hop that curb or else around you'll go. Now we've seen guys come back after spinning out at Martinsville to win, Jeff Gordon a couple years ago and Kurt Busch last October. So it can be done, but trust me there isn't a driver out there who wants to have to try it.

As with any short track, we'll see a lot of guys rubbing and leaning on each other on Sunday. That's just the nature of racing these 3,400-lb stock cars on a half-mile racetrack. And of course with that we'll probably also see some high emotions.

Martinsville is a throwback to NASCAR's heritage. It's a picturesque setting and the track management has done a great job building seats and taking care of the fans over the years. There really isn't a bad seat in the house with pretty tight action all around the track.

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Rusty Wallace and Jeff Gordon are the two names that leap to mind when you think about Martinsville success. Rusty has been struggling this year, but Martinsville might just be the tonic to turn things around for him. Jeff didn't fare too well at Martinsville last year, finishing 23rd and 36th, but I think he's so hungry for a win this year that it could come on Sunday.

Kurt Busch broke into the winner's column at Martinsville last October and I look for him to be a strong contender again on Sunday. But one guy who hasn't been to Victory Lane at Martinsville during his career is his teammate Matt Kenseth. He's on top of the Winston Cup point standings and I have a hunch he'll be a force in the Virginia 500.

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