MARTINSVILLE, Va. — NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece didn’t hold back when explaining why Martinsville Speedway is a little more important to him than other race tracks the series visits.
Preece, who has a pole and a pair of top-10 finishes at Martinsville, explained that the .525-mile oval has played a vital role in his racing career
“Martinsville is a place that I love and the reason being is that’s where I got my first modified win,” Preece explained. “That’s where I got my first Cup Series pole. That’s where I’ve won multiple times in the modifieds, so there’s a lot of great things about Martinsville for me, but it’s just that track.
“There are certain race tracks that drivers feel that when they go to them, they feel like they can get that extra little bit, and when it comes to Martinsville, that’s the style of race track that we’re always a contender to go get the pole. We’re a contender at short tracks, so, for me, I talk about qualifying is extremely important and that’s because it is. Trying to make up track position in year’s past is extremely difficult and sometimes it takes you all 400 laps to do that.
“We saw it earlier this spring when we stayed out for stage points. It took us all the way until the final 50 laps to get in the top 10 and it’s not easy, so with that being said, I do see with Goodyear that the new left side should promote some tire wear, should promote tire management, so that should create late-race passing depending on how long these runs go, so there are a lot of things on my mind when it comes to that.
“That could make the track position game, depending on how your car is and how you manage your tires, a little bit easier, but when we go to Martinsville that is circled at the beginning of the year – two times that we can go win.”
Preece is enthusiastic about the new Martinsville tire.
“That’s why I’m actually excited that we’re heading down the route that we’re going with the tire. I’ve been saying it for four years. This is what we need to do and we’ve been doing it and, guess what? Now we’re seeing passing. We’re seeing management,” Preece explained. “We’re seeing things that a lot of these drivers, a lot of people, they’re used to 40-50 lap sprints and management isn’t really a thing. You just had hard tires that depending on how hot they got would fall off, and now you saw it at the ROVAL, you’ve seen it at Loudon, you saw it at various places that depending on how hard you abuse that tire, the bigger the price you pay.
“That’s very similar to what I grew up racing was, ‘yeah, I can choose to beat this tire and make speed and do all that, but I’m gonna pay the price at lap 40 or 50 in an 80-100 lap race.’ So, to me, the balance, the characteristics of the way that the car is driving as well was the tire deg is getting a lot more similar to what I’m used to.”
