Martinsville Speedway has one of the most storied histories in NASCAR. Credit: Autostock

Enduring Performance: 1965 Virginia 500

With the $4,350 he earned for winning the 1965 Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Fred Lorenzen couldn't afford to buy the track from H. Clay Earles -- but he certainly owned it.

Lorenzen's two-second victory against Marvin Panch was his fourth consecutive victory on the half-mile oval, a feat that has never been equalled.

Top finishers 1965 Virginia 500 Pos. Driver Make 1. Fred Lorenzen Ford 2. Marvin Panch Ford 3. Dick Hutcherson Ford 4. Tiny Lund Ford 5. Buddy Arrington Dodge 6. Elmo Langley Ford 7. Paul Lewis Ford 8. Doug Cooper Ford 9. Buren Skeen Ford 10. Ned Jarrett Ford

How dominant was "Fearless Freddy" during that stretch? That finish was the closest of the four. Lorenzen beat Panch by more than a lap in 1963 and 1964 -- and Richard Petty wound up a third of a lap behind in the 1964 fall event.

Panch's second-place finish continued a series of close-but-not-enough finishes at Martinsville for the Wood Brothers. It was the eighth runner-up finish there for the No. 21 Ford. The Woods would finally break into the win column at their home track in 1968, with Cale Yarborough behind the wheel.

When the race started, it appeared pole-sitter Junior Johnson would be the one to end Lorenzen's streak. He led 146 laps, but a crash left him 22nd. Lorenzen's teammate, Bobby Johns, would lead 16 laps, but would also be sidelined by contact.

That left Panch as the only challenger -- and he was in danger of going down a lap to the leader when G.C. Spencer, running fifth, blew a tire and impaled his car on the first turn guardrail on Lap 455 of the 500-lap race. It took safety workers 18 laps to get Spencer's car free, allowing Panch to close to within six car-lengths of Lorenzen when the race restarted.

However, that would be the extent of Panch's charge. Lorenzen's Holman-Moody Ford steadily pulled away from Panch as the laps wound down.

Freddy's average speed was a blistering 66.765 mph, which accounted for the reason why he and Panch were so far in front of the rest of the field. Third-place Dick Hutcherson finished six laps behind, while Tiny Lund (13 laps back) and Buddy Arrington (28 laps behind) rounded out the top five.

Only 15 of the original 36 starters were running at the end, with Arrington's Dodge being the only non-Ford to finish. The top General Motors effort was Roy Tyner's Chevrolet, which wound up 19th after suffering transmission trouble.

Why the Ford domination? Dodge pulled its manufacturer support that year when NASCAR banned the Hemi engine, following the lead of General Motors, which was continuing to stay out of racing. While NASCAR was running at Martinsville, Petty Enterprises was running the drag racing circuit in the spring of 1965.