NASCAR still a Martinsville staple, just like the hot dog

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Junior Johnson has seen firsthand the benefits what most folks would call a small-time community can reap from a big-time racetrack.

And he has seen the economic devastation that can occur in such communities when big-time races are suddenly ripped from such a racetrack's schedule. Johnson, the legendary former NASCAR driver and car owner, witnessed the demise of the old North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina and what happened to that area after NASCAR stopped running races there.

He said he doesn't want to see the same thing happen to Martinsville Speedway, the short track that held its first race in September 1949 and therefore has been around as long as NASCAR itself. Like most very old things, it just isn't as shiny as it used to be.

"Losing the speedway hurt us very, very, very bad," said Johnson, who still lives near the silent North Wilkesboro track. "It would hurt Martinsville, too. Martinsville would be devastated if they took one race away -- just like it would [be to] Bristol.

"That racetrack was North Wilkesboro and Wilkes County. It's hard to believe it because we had all kinds of manufacturing facilities there for everything. But when the racetrack left, a lot of them left, too."

Unlike most of the other racetracks where the top three NASCAR series race, Martinsville is not easily accessible by the Interstate -- in fact, it's not directly accessible by any Interstate at all; it does not seat 100,000 fans or more; and it still offers hot dogs as its most famous item on the concession menu.

The grandstands seat only 65,000. Even the traditional Grandfather clocks given to race winners seem a little outdated and out of place in today's fast-paced, corporate-driven sport.

Located on U.S. Highway 220 South, 2 miles south from the heart of Martinsville, halfway between Roanoke, Va., and Greensboro, N.C. -- bigger cities that are more or less an hour away in each direction -- Martinsville Speedway seems to be a place that time forgot.

Johnson and others are hoping racing doesn't forget it somewhere down the line. As the sport has grown, so has speculation that NASCAR may eventually take one of Martinsville's two race dates for Nextel Cup and give them to another track -- which is to say a bigger, newer, fancier track in a larger market. (Continued)