The NASCAR Cup Series racing under the lights at Martinsville Speedway will finally happen Wednesday night with the running of the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500. However, it certainly wasn’t supposed to be this way.
When the 2020 schedule was released the announcement that the iconic Virginia short track would host NASCAR’s top division on Saturday night, May 9 immediately made it one of if not the most anticipated races of the season. While previous fall playoff races ended under Martinsville’s new lighting system installed in 2017, a scheduled night race was a completely different animal.
See Also: Martinsville schedule
The track reported fast ticket sales and fan reaction was sky high when the race was officially unveiled. But then came the COVID-19 crisis and the entire NASCAR schedule including the Mother’s Day weekend Saturday night Martinsville date went into flux.
The good news is when the sport returned, so did the Martinsville night race, albeit in a much different light (pun intended). The Cup Series will indeed compete for the first time under Martinsville’s lights but without any fans in the stands.
As has been the case since NASCAR got back on track in mid-May, allowing fans into the grandstands continues to be a process working with local government and state health officials. So while the show will go on, radio (MRN, 6 p.m. ET) and television (FS1) will be the only way for fans to take in the action.
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While a disappointment and definitely creating a different atmosphere with empty grandstands surrounding the half-mile, paper clip shaped track, it hasn’t completely dampened the enthusiasm for drivers looking forward to the historic race.
“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,” explained last week’s Atlanta winner Kevin Harvick. “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 schedule hiatus and subsequent return also delivers another midweek Cup race opportunity after two prior outings in Darlington and Charlotte. The All-Star Race and a rescheduled race at Kansas Speedway next month gives the Cup Series at least two more shots to compete during the week after Wednesday’s Martinsville outing. Whether the idea becomes part of the sport’s scheduling process in the future remains to be seen but NASCAR continues to look for ways to experiment during this unprecedented time.
I’d say it’s a safe bet that a Saturday night Martinsville Cup race is back on the 2021 schedule. Based on the buzz this year’s original announcement received that’s about as sure a bet there is, right next to a number of drivers not liking one another much after the checkered flag flies Wednesday night.
That’s Martinsville.
The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Motor Racing Network.
