Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 17, 1994 TAG: 9404170113
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last week, Jimmy Spencer was the last of more than 20 drivers to test his Winston Cup car at Martinsville Speedway in preparation for the Hanes 500 on April 24.
No one is too old to learn, it seems, because Spencer, 36, drove a number of laps around the .526-mile speedway with orange highway cones placed midway up the turns to keep him in the groove.
"I have a bad habit from racing Modifieds here of cutting the corners short," he said during a break in the session. "They [car owner Junior Johnson and crew chief Mike Hill] decided that would help me a lot."
Spencer has fond memories of Martinsville, if only for a prophetic encounter he had with Johnson on the backstretch in 1979.
Spencer was 21 - a rookie on the NASCAR Modified Tour - and, when he saw Johnson and his driver, Cale Yarborough, he did what any young racing enthusiast would: He had his picture taken with them.
"I told Junior that I wanted to drive for him some day," Spencer said. "He looked at me real funny, you know, and he told me to keep that attitude up, that it might happen some day. And it has."
Spencer also is partial to Martinsville because he's won a Modified race and wrapped up his 1986 and 1987 Modified championships at the track.
"I like this place," he said. "It's hard on brakes and hard on your temper, but if you can keep your car in pretty good condition all day long, you might have a real good finish."
When Spencer was a Modified rookie, the Winston Cup races at Martinsville were drawing crowds of more than 35,000 - not bad for a city with a population of about 19,000.
Come April 24, about 60,000 people will jam into the small, rural track on U.S. 220 just south of the city. The policy of speedway founder H. Clay Earles and president W. Clay Campbell has been to build something new every year, and the fans have fueled that growth with ever-greater demand for tickets.
The 3,300 new grandstand seats that they had built above the second turn this spring sold out in three days. The speedway now has about 59,000 seats, including 51,000 reserved seats, of which some in the lower rows remain available.
"A lot of people have gone on the assumption that we're sold out," Campbell said. "But usually we have fairly good tickets left the week before the race, and we do now."
The track also will have its traditional sale of 8,000 unreserved backstretch seats beginning at 7:30 a.m. on race day.
Forty-six cars have entered the race, including Grand National regular Jim Bown, trying to make the race in a Chevrolet owned by John Kieper. However, a handful of drivers will be going home early. No more than 37 cars will start.
To accommodate a larger starting field of 36 cars - 34 regular spots (two more than last year) and two provisionals - the speedway has added two pits. One is on the frontstretch and one is on the backstretch.
If a former Winston Cup champion needs a champion's provisional to get into the race and the field swells to 37 cars (as it did at Bristol on April 10), two teams probably will have to use one pit, Campbell said.
In addition to adding seats, the speedway has added space for parking 300 more cars by filling in a portion of the pond outside the fourth turn.
"And we just completed a deal to purchase about 40 acres adjacent to our land for more parking," Campbell said.
He added that the Virginia State Police and the highway department "are shooting for a 20 percent reduction in time in getting out of the track," using refined traffic patterns designed to keep all lanes moving. In September, it took about three hours for traffic to clear.
"Any time you've got that many people in one area, it takes awhile to get them out," Campbell said. "But if people are moving, they're happy. What we're aiming to do is keep people moving."
Campbell also said he tried to institute a policy banning tent campers, but the campers howled so loudly (they pay $20 to camp), Campbell designated a tents-only camping area directly behind turn 3.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB