Key takeaways from Martinsville

By Holly Cain

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series returned to racing after a week off and took Martinsville Speedway, the first short-track visit of the season, by storm. From weekend sweeps to multiple on-track misfortunes, Sunday's STP 500 was a spectacle you wouldn't have wanted to miss. NASCAR.com's Holly Cain breaks down the key takeaways from Sunday's race at 'The Paperclip.'

Patrick's perseverance

Martinsville Speedway has been one of Danica Patrick's best tracks following an impressive 12th-place debut there in 2013. She finished a career-best seventh-place finish in this race last year and spent a portion of Sunday's race running among the top 10 or close to it.

Patrick was as high as eighth place with 95 laps remaining prompting FOX Sports commentator and four-time series champion Jeff Gordon to say, 'she's stepped up today. It's impressive.'

While it wasn't her best at the track, Patrick's 16th-place finish Sunday was her best of the season.

Don't count out Dale

Dale Earnhardt Jr. proved again that he can never be counted out of a race. After being spun out by David Ragan early in the race, Earnhardt rallied from being a lap down. A typically wild finish saw Earnhardt drop from seventh with 18 laps remaining to a final 14th-place after a frenzied final push following the race's last restart with 11 laps to go.

'The car was fun,' Earnhardt said. 'We had good long run speed. Just didn't end up working out for us as far as the line we were in on our last restart. ... What do you do? If you can't start in the inside you are screwed.'

Favorites fade

Kyle Busch was a first-time winner at Martinsville Speedway while the usual winning contingent of Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin -- who have 13 wins between them -- endured a bizarre day.

Eight-time Martinsville champion Johnson, who has led more than 2,700 laps at the Sprint Cup Series' smallest track, didn't lead one Sunday and hasn't now in four consecutive races there. With 21 laps remaining, he was passed by six cars and finished ninth.

Six-time Martinsville winner Hamlin was running fifth when he crashed out on Lap 220 of 500. His car succumbed to a wheel hop, which surprised the Daytona 500 winner and left him with a 39th-place finish -- his worst of 2016.

Close to home

Brian Vickers' seventh-place finish in the No. 14 Chevrolet was a season-best for the car, which has had substitute drivers all season while team owner and driver Tony Stewart recovers from offseason back injury.

Beyond what it means for the Stewart-Haas Racing team, the result was sentimental and positive for Vickers, who lost his best friend Ricky Hendrick in a plane crash near the Martinsville track in 2004. Hendrick was 24. The accident claimed 10 lives, including team owner Rick Hendrick's only son Ricky, and his brother John and John's two daughters.

'This is a bittersweet special track for me,' Vickers said. 'I lost my best friend here. I really wanted to win for him.'

Fade out

As it turned out, qualifying magic didn't result in race-day results for the two front-row starters, pole-winner Joey Logano and outside polesitter Kasey Kahne, who was making his best start of the year.

Logano finished 11th and Kahne spent most of the day a lap down before finally getting back on the lead lap and settling for a 22nd-place finish.

'It was frustrating,' Logano said. 'You want to go out there and win for sure and we just missed it. The first run was just absolutely awful to go down a lap from the lead.'