Late Model Stock teams dodge tornadoes during Martinsville inspection day

At one point during the second tornado warning of the day on Friday at Martinsville Speedway, the line to get hot dogs was four deep, the conviction being there any risk of cyclonic death would at least come with a culinary experience.

This sums up what turned into technical inspection day for the ValleyStar Credit Union 300.  

Originally scheduled as practice and qualifying day, the remnants of Hurricane Helene made for a non-traditional technical inspection experience as there were heavy rains, muggy periods of sunshine, more rains, a tornado warning, more sunshine, another tornado warning, sunshine and then a tranquil finish to the day.

Ultimately, NASCAR’s decision to make Friday an inspection day with an early clock out time actually couldn’t have gone better. There were some challenges with teams meeting template inspections but nothing too dramatic, especially by the standards of this race over the years.

Chassis builder and team owner Marcus Richmond applauded the results of the process.

“100 percent,” Richmond said. “They are doing all they can to make it the best experience and really the only unfortunate part is that if you come up here as a rookie driver, now you only get half the practice and those guys are paying top dollar to come here, so that’s sad.

“But really, I feel like they made the best decision they could with the information they had and the processes has gone perfect from tech and the rules. I’m pretty excited about that.”

NASCAR has provided a lot resources to Martinsville Speedway track promoter Clay Campbell from Air Titans, Elgin Sweepers and every inspection tool available from the regional and touring divisions.

The only real challenges, again, was body templates but Richmond gave the inspection team high marks there too, crediting them for allowing teams to easily fix it.

“They’re being strict but they are being realistic too,” Richmond said. “With the NASCAR rule book, you get so many different interpretations over the year but they’re treating everything as black and white and that makes it easier for us.

“I would say the NASCAR rule book and Five Star’s measurements don’t line up well, from how the bodies were originally built and what they’re calling right but they’re doing a good job with it.”

They allowed teams to make second pass-throughs too if they needed it.

“They actually allowed a lot of the guys to just fix it on the spot,” Richmond said. “We have the time so they were a huge help today.”

Veteran second generation racer Andrew Grady said templates ‘were a big thing’ on Friday.

“You got guys who show up here and their left side looks like it got hit by a Mack truck,” Grady said. “They’re going to have to fix that but they’ve made it pretty easy.”

Mike Looney, the 2016 race winner, was one such driver who had some issues getting through the referee with his Billy Martin Racing 87VA.

“Oh just the usual template stuff,” Looney said with a laugh. “The same thing everyone had. The way this body relaxes, it doesn’t always fit the template. We got er all torqued up and the roof might blow off and we might need to wear safety glasses around it but it’s legal and everybody is happy.”

Lee Pulliam, a two-time winner of the race and a team owner of multiple cars, came away with a positive impression too.

“They moved everything up to save guys some hotel stays,” Pulliam said. “Getting out of here early on Friday saved another night of hotel rooms, lets us go have dinner. The tech process has been a good deal and they’ve worked hard to be fair too.”

Peyton Sellers, a two-time NASCAR Advance Auto Parts national champion, seven-time South Boston Speedway track champion and the 2022 winner of the ValleyStar 300 shared Richmond’s sentiments about the lack of practice time and really pushed hard for the return of a test day, which used to come the week before the race every year until 2019.

“This is an example of a test day really would have been welcome,” Sellers said. “You can condense the race day and not be as hard on people. This is going to be hard on young drivers that have never been here. You want to be fair to those guys, who have spent a lot of money to come up here, and I don’t think it shows the competitors a lot of respect to not give them more practice than what we have here.

“I’d like to see more respect shown from NASCAR but I also recognize that they had a curve ball thrown at them this year for sure.”

Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway and grandson of track founder H. Clay Earles, credits NASCAR competition operations senior manager Chase Brashears for putting this weekend together against all the hurdles.

“The group we’ve assembled this year under Chase and the support of NASCAR is just really impressive,” Campbell said. “We had a lot of meetings and communication, and that’s really what this was about, communication because that’s been the key to making today work.

“The teams knew what to expect, even with the two tornado warnings shutting us down a little bit, but everything has worked out really well. We’re ready to roll tomorrow.”

As for the suggestion that this race needs a test day again, Campbell isn’t totally sure.

“We’re not opposed to it,” Campbell said. “But right now, the way we look at it, it is an added expense and if we have five hour test day, no one jumps out there until the last hour and then you have 80 cars trying to test in that last hour and then they want three more hours.

“So what difference is it making in those first four hours when no one is testing? I’m not saying we’ll never do one again but another thing to consider too is that if someone tests, and then they don’t like their car, then they decide not to come back, selfishly, I don’t like that as the promoter either. Come to the race and find out that weekend where you stack up.”

The only significant issue is that Dylan Ward had to go back home for an engine swap but returned to the track and there were no other major issues.

All that’s left is to race it out.