Rusty Wallace became very accustomed to victory lane at Martinsville Speedway.
The 7-time winner at The Paperclip said Monday at an event in Martinsville his first thought when he heard this spring's race would be a night race was "I wish I could be in the car and race."
Wallace said to expect faster speeds and better handling cars for Wednesday's Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville thanks to the cooler track temperatures under the lights.
Even though the race will be run without fans in the stands, Wallace said those watching on TV should still be in for a treat.
"Once they drop the flag and it gets going you're going to hear all the noise, you're going to see all the cars and all the sparks and all the beating and banging and all that," Wallace said.
Wallace will be calling the race on the Motor Racing Network radio.
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"Oh heck, get ready. Martinsville is Martinsville. We might have the pandemic and all that going on but that's not going to stop these guys with the big right foot and all the beating and banging, all the action. It's going to be exciting. We don't get to see all those sparks and all this fire coming out of the exhaust pipes on a day race. At night, holy smokes it's going to look really wild at night and I can't wait to be up in that booth watching it all."
Here's what other drivers had to say about Wednesday's race:
Kyle Busch
We’ve run well there, the last four years especially, at Martinsville and we’re definitely pumped about getting back there. I’m hoping we can have a really good car there again this time around. We led a lot of laps and we’ve been really fast… Obviously it will be a bit different than last year with a different package so I think that will lend to our strengths. The first set of races with that package were positive and hopefully we have another good race with it this week. So far so good.
Clint Bowyer
You acquire a driving style there. Nobody in the history of the sports has shown up at Martinsville and instantly knew how to drive the place, let alone set the world on fire. You’ve got to learn it, appreciate it, put in your time. Eventually, you perfect it by trial and error. You don’t perfect a track like Martinsville through natural talent. You’ve got to get out there and learn from the mistakes. You don’t want to make the same mistake lap after lap, year after year.
The same principals of speed don’t apply there. If your crew chief is in your ear saying he needs a tenth (of a second), you think, ‘Let me get on the gas quicker, let me drive it in deeper.’ Those are all the things it normally takes to go faster at any other place. Those do not apply at Martinsville. You just have to learn that place.
Denny Hamlin
Martinsville will be different in a lot of different ways. They’re bringing a new tire to that racetrack, that could be as big as or bigger change than any weather change that we are going to have from history. You look at the dates, it’s going to be way further in the year than we’ve raced at Martinsville, way hotter temperatures.
It used to be with the old tires, we used to need for it to be 60 degrees outside temperature for the tire to lay rubber. I know they really worked hard in the Goodyear test to try to have a tire that laid rubber down, that had fall off, because we hadn’t had fall off, and the racing had kind of suffered the last few years when we had the big spoiler and now fall off. Just really, racing suffered at Martinsville. That’s a track that should never – we should never be talking about aerodynamics, so they worked really hard on it.
Even though we are going from day to night, I don’t think it will be as much because it is still a concrete surface that is brighter in color. The lighter the color the less transition you’ll have from day to night anyway. I don’t think that will be as big as of a difference as the tire change and the actual temperature.
Aric Almirola
No matter what the situation is, we as racers always love going to short tracks. It’s what we grew up doing and it puts the outcome in the driver’s hands more than the superspeedway races. You can’t pass much there, so it’s extremely important that you stay mentally and physically focused throughout the entire run.
Kevin Harvick
When you look at Martinsville and you add the short-track Saturday-night feel to a midweek race is something we’ve all not really experienced. I’m looking forward to that experience. Being under the lights for pretty much the whole race is going to be a great moment for our sport and we get to fire those lights up in Martinsville.
It’s always intense. You’re going to get run into, you going to run into somebody. Someone is going to be mad at you and you are probably going to be mad at more than one person as you go through the race. It’s a great place to race.
The thing I look at is you’re going to run Martinsville and then run Homestead by the end of the week. That’s it, a third of the season is gone. We’ve made up a lot of ground of the races we’ve missed. We’ve got 14 races left until the playoffs start. As you look forward, things are happening really fast. I’m proud we’ve gotten back on the racetrack and doing the things we’ve done. And with Martinsville being in the playoffs, it’s important to understand what you have when you leave the racetrack.
