Martinsville Speedway is a popular venue with teams and fans alike. It is not necessarily the car with the most power that wins. Rather, it is the best-handling car. However, since the Next Gen car entered the NASCAR Cup Series, other factors have come into play.
NOCO 400
2022 was rather miserable at Martinsville as neither race was particularly all that competitive. The Xfinity 500 was particularly bad as there were fewer than 700 total passes on track for the entire race. Needless to say, this could not stand.
Since then, NASCAR has unveiled its new low-downforce rules package, meant to improve the action. Martinsville was the true test.
The first half of the race was not particularly swell. No one could touch Ryan Preece. I don’t recall ever saying that since he’s been in the Cup Series. Furthermore, it appeared to be really difficult to pass.
That said, there was some action to be had. Unlike many broadcasts, the on-track actually seemed to pick up as the race went on and teams got themselves on alternate strategies.
In the booth on Sunday (Apr. 16) was Bobby Labonte. While he doesn’t have a lot of experience in the broadcast booth, he does have a lot of experience as an analyst on NASCAR RaceHub. As a result, he had a number of things ready to go about the race and was pretty quick to get in there. I thought that he did a good job breaking down the action. I liked him in that spot.
Clint Bowyer came off like he was unprepared. He really hasn’t had much energy this year, as if he has an on/off switch installed on him that is in the off position. I have no idea why that would be the case, knowing that he’s supposed to be the wild one. Perhaps there’s only so much enthusiasm that Bowyer can exude over his lifetime and he’s coming precariously close to running out.
He also seemed to have no idea what Team NEGU, the primary sponsor of Corey LaJoie’s car was yesterday, stating that on-air. The analysts get pages and pages and pages of material that they can use to prepare themselves. I’ve seen that stuff; Jeff Burton showed it to me back in 2018. You don’t have to read it all (and Burton doesn’t read it all, believe me), but you probably should know what a specific sponsor is. Joy posted to Twitter Monday about what Team NEGU is.
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