Matt Kenseth concedes that he doesn’t necessarily circle Martinsville Speedway race dates on his calendar. And that was before he was parked for wrecking Joey Logano there last fall.
When it comes to performance, Martinsville’s super tight .526-mile track has been a supreme challenge for Kenseth, who is winless there in 32 tries.
However, Kenseth and his Toyota teammates approach Sunday’s STP 500 (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM) feeling like it’s their race to lose — with statistical upturn to prove their confidence warranted.
“There wasn’t much I enjoyed about racing at Martinsville until I came to Joe Gibbs Racing. … I’ve learned a lot from my teammates and have gotten some pretty competitive runs in, so I’m looking forward to this weekend,” Kenseth said. “Martinsville is always one of my biggest challenges of the year, but it can be a lot of fun when our cars are running well.”
And their cars are running well. Three of Kenseth’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates are ranked among the top five in the standings (Carl Edwards, third; Denny Hamlin, fourth; Kyle Busch, fifth). New Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. is 11th and Kenseth is 15th.
Hamlin, the defending winner of this race, has proved himself a Martinsville master — winning three straight races in 2009-10 and boasting five of the prized grandfather clock winner’s trophies. He has an eye-popping 11 top-five finishes in 20 starts there.
But Hamlin is also the only Toyota driver with a win at NASCAR’s smallest track.
Busch, who missed this race last year recovering from leg injuries, has three top-five finishes in his last six races there and won the pole position in 2014.
Kenseth has finished among the top six in four of six starts there since transitioning to Toyota and equaled a career best runner-up showing in 2013, his first year with Gibbs. He had only three top-five finishes at Martinsville in his previous 26 starts.
Edwards, who has only one top-five result in 23 Martinsville races, finished 17th and 14th at Martinsville in his maiden Toyota season in 2015 but returns this year with Hamlin’s former Martinsville-winning crew chief Dave Rogers. Like Kenseth, Edwards has a renewed outlook for Martinsville thanks to his teammates.
“Dave Rogers (crew chief) and this No. 19 crew like a challenge — getting me to Victory Lane at Martinsville is going to be a good one,” Edwards said. “I have struggled there, but I truly have no reason not to run well at this race. It’s because I’ve got great cars and great teammates.
“Denny Hamlin‘s help last year really stepped up my performance there. We ran really well in the spring last year. That was really a turning point for me. We learned a lot and hopefully we can build on that.”
Furniture Row Racing driver Truex has never won at Martinsville, either, but his back-to-back sixth-place finishes in 2015 give him momentum for this weekend.
All in all, only six drivers on this weekend’s grid have won at Martinsville, and with the exception of the recently retired Jeff Gordon (who won in 2015 and 2013) and his Hendrick Motorsports Chevy teammate Jimmie Johnson (who won in 2012-13) it’s been a reasonably diverse group of winners.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick have all earned clocks in the last seven years.