Martinsville’s Boss Guaranteed His Cup Races Were 500 Laps

Don’t really know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but the NOCO 400 NASCAR Cup Series race held Sunday (Apr. 16) was only the second 400-lap event conducted at Martinsville Speedway.

However, if the track’s founder and long-time president, the late Henry Clay Earles, was still with us you may be rest assured that would not be the case.

Earles, who was passionate about his speedway and how it was treated by the sanctioning body, would have never permitted his races to deviate from 500 laps.

If that had been proposed, Earle’s jaw would stiffen, his eyes would widen, his face would turn red and a finger would shake violently in the face of the unfortunate individual who made such a suggestion.

Believe me, I know. I’ve seen it – more than once.

The first 400-lap race was the Blue Emu Maximum Pain Relieve 400 last April, won by William Byron. Kyle Larson was the winner in the second 400-lapper on Sunday.

Now, that Martinsville went to shorter races after so many years is not questioned here. Officials, competitors and fans alike have said such events have a greater opportunity to be more entertaining and exciting – among many other things.

This is a far cry from how it used to be. For a very long time, the number 500 was the benchmark in NASCAR Cup racing. Superspeedways and intermediate tracks staged 500-mile races while most of the short track events, not all, were composed of 500 laps.

Martinsville, at 0.526 miles, was one of those tracks. While Earles made it clear that was the way it was going to stay, not everyone accepted that.

The loudest and most serious complaint about a 500-lap race at Martinsville was voiced in 1977.

It led to a vocal confrontation and added to one of the most noteworthy feuds in NASCAR history.

In 1977, Cale Yarborough was in his fourth year driving for Junior Johnson. He had been vastly successful, piling up victories – he was a titan on the short tracks – and earning his first championship in 1976.

It was Yarborough who fired the first shot that started the feud.

In the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Labor Day, Darrell Waltrip, a rising star with the sometimes fractured DiGard Racing Co., was scrapping with Yarborough for the victory.

Both drivers refused to back off and ultimately that led to a pileup that made scrap metal out of five cars. Miraculously, Yarborough finished fifth and Waltrip sixth.

After the race, D.K. Ulrich, one of the…