Martinsville could give Chase driver breakthrough win

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Once the Sprint Cup circuit's most exclusive club, the gate to victory lane at Martinsville Speedway slowly seems to be creaking open.

After a nine-race stretch in which only two drivers (Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin) conquered the 0.526-mile track in four years, the roster of winners has expanded (new faces Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman) while the list of contenders has grown considerably.

In the most recent race at Martinsville, Kurt Busch triumphed for the first time in 12 years at the paper clip-shaped oval while Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth and Marcos Ambrose led laps.

It was a marked change for a NASCAR landmark that has embodied a constancy reflective of the southwest Virginia hamlet where it's been nestled since 1947.

Over the past 11 years, 19 of 23 races at Martinsville have been won by four drivers – Johnson (eight wins), Hamlin (four), Jeff Gordon (five) and Tony Stewart (two).

But with Sunday's Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 gaining increased magnitude as the opener to the three-race round that will determine the four drivers eligible for the championship in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, there's more at stake. There are also encouraging signs for the eight remaining title-eligible drivers – half of whom (Kenseth, Logano, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards) haven't won yet at Martinsville.

"The competition is always trying to get better," Gordon said. "It's amazing the spy photos going on these days of how we're getting information; whether it's the cars on the track or in the garage area. You start to look at those details as to what it takes. Sometimes, it's things they're doing with their cars and their setups.

"But I think everybody is always challenged by Martinsville and how difficult this track is. And the top teams and drivers look at that challenge and say, 'We don't want this track to be our Achilles'.' We want this track to be a track where we can be a real factor."

The best example of grabbing that mantle is Kenseth, who has been an emerging force at Martinsville since last year's move to Joe Gibbs Racing. The 2003 series champion will start third Sunday in aiming for his third straight top 10 at Martinsville – which would mark a personal best at a track where he has 29 mostly forgettable starts.

Until taking over JGR's No. 20 Toyota, Kenseth had led 73 laps at Martinsville in 13 seasons for Roush Fenway Racing. In three starts since then, he has led 334 laps here.

"I think in another 10 or 15 years, I'll have it," he cracked Friday after his fifth straight top 10 qualifying effort.

The impressive improvement in recent results has coincided with two significant changes in NASCAR's premier series: the 2013 debut of the Gen 6 chassis and this season's abolition of minimum height rules, which has had a major impact on setups. Selecting the proper shock absorbers and brakes is critical at Martinsville, so a new wrinkle in suspension adjustments could have a positive influence on increasing parity.

But it also is about navigating the smallest track in Cup. Learning to master Martinsville often occurs with an "aha" moment of understanding the key to going fast sometimes centers on slowing down instead of charging into its sharp and flat corners. The top speed during a lap at Martinsville rarely cracks 100 mph, which can be disorienting for drivers who just spent three hours traversing 500 miles at 200 mph at Talladega Superspeedway.

"I feel like the last couple of years especially we've been able to kind of figure out what we need to go fast here," said Logano, whose fourth in the March 30 race was his first top five at Martinsville in four years. "This is definitely one of those race tracks that it's usually the same guys that run fast every single year. I don't know if it's a setup they have or if it's just a certain driving style or the way they attack the race track. The patience that those guys have and show throughout a run, I think all of that kind of stacks up as to what makes a good driver at Martinsville. And I feel like I've been able to hone in on that and try to get as close as we can."

The Team Penske Fords of Logano and Keselowski tested at Martinsville last week, instilling more confidence of the correct direction for the only organization with all of its cars remaining in the Chase.

Keselowski has five top 10s in nine starts at Martinsville, including a career-best fourth last October. After a nail-biting win at Talladega last week kept his Chase bid alive and raised his series-leading win count to six, the 2012 champion wants to open the Eliminator Round with the relief of a victory.

"I've been right there but have just needed a little extra step to be able to win," said Keselowski, the only Chase driver who doesn't have a win at the four tracks left this season (Martinsville, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead). "We put in a lot of effort and hopefully this will be the weekend."

Keselowski said a testing ban in 2009 helped give Hamlin, Gordon and Johnson an edge on the field for a while.

"That group was ahead at that time, and along with their driving styles are pretty good here," he said. "You combine all those things together and they just seemed to maintain an advantage that we couldn't really seem to displace. I think we're definitely gaining on it."

But there are factors that could help the familiar names reassert their dominance Sunday.

In March, the perennial favorites struggled with a tire that didn't lay rubber on the track, and Goodyear responded by bringing a new tire that Gordon said was more similar to two seasons ago.

"That's why we decided to test here," said Gordon, whose No. 24 Chevrolet was among the fastest in Saturday's practices. "And then they went and switched the tire back, and it really brought my car back to life to what we had that worked so well. So, that's sometimes all it takes is just changing a tire that can throw off your setup that's worked so well and bring others into the mix."

Hamlin said in 2009 his No. 11 Toyota team judged its speed at Martinsville by focusing only on Gordon and Johnson during practice, and he believes Sunday's race could revert to that era – particularly because this weekend has featured full practice time after Saturday's sessions were rained out in the last trip.

"In the end you're still going to be racing the same guys no matter what the changes are because they have a technique to get around this race track that is going to make them successful," said Hamlin, who tested at Sandusky Speedway in Ohio to prepare for Martinsville after a disappointing 19th in March. "It's worked for them for so many years. I consider (March) our one bad race here because we didn't have any practice, and we had an experimental setup, and it just didn't work. With enough practice, I believe still it's going to be the same old guys. There are other guys that can be really competitive, but they're not consistently competitive every single race here."

Said Kenseth, his JGR teammate: "The spring race was really different compared to what I think you're going to see (Sunday). I feel like there are those few guys that are still probably the favorites -- (Johnson), (Gordon), Denny. (Keselowski), (Logano) or (Harvick) will probably run good as well because they've been running good everywhere."

Harvick will face his stiffest challenge yet of the Chase, starting 33rd after scraping the wall twice in qualifying.

He seemed to rediscover his touch Saturday, turning the fastest lap in the final practice, but the odds will be stacked against the Stewart-Haas Racing driver.

In 131 Cup races at Martinsville, only six winners have started outside the top 20 with the lowest being Kurt Busch from 36th in October 2002. Conversely, the winner has started in the top 10 in 95 of those races here.

Among Chase drivers, only Edwards (11th), Gordon (13th) and Harvick will start outside the top 10 Sunday, but anxious moments likely will await every championship contender.

"The chances are low for all eight to come out with straight race cars," Johnson said. "Those moments seem to surface on short tracks. There's always a chance for that. It can just happen over the course of the race. There can be plenty of madness here."

Follow Ryan on Twitter @nateryan