1953-36 - NASCAR Race

Name of Race:	1953-36
Name of Track:	Martinsville Speedway
Date:	N/A

Martinsville Speedway is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Martinsville, Virginia. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

NASCAR Paperclip

The track was also one of the first paved "superspeedways" in NASCAR, being built in 1947 by H. Clay Earles. The track is often referred to as paper clip-shaped and is banked only 12° in the turns. The combination of long straightaways and flat, narrow turns makes hard braking going into turns and smooth acceleration exiting turns a must.

Original Ownership

The track ownership was a joint venture of brothers Jim and Bill France, Jr., and H. Clay Earles, the majority owner, along with daughters Dorothy Campbell and Mary Weatherford, and Dorothy Campbell's children, Sarah Fain and Clay Campbell.

Grandfather Clock Trophy

Winners of Martinsville's Nextel Cup and Whelen Modified Tour events receive a longcase clock as a trophy instead of a regular trophy, a tip of the cap to the fame of the Martinsville furniture industry. One of the neat things one can see while watching a NASCAR race is a Norfolk Southern train running along the tracks outside the speedway, although the tracks were recently moved back 100 feet.

$192 Million Price Tag

Although sold for $192 million in 2004, the track continues to prosper under the new ownership of International Speedway Corporation. The track hosts two Nextel cup races, currently the DirecTV 500 in April and the Subway 500 in October, along with Busch, Craftsman Truck, and Late Model Stock Car races. The track had plans to add an additional 20,000 seats along the backstretch, boosting capacity to over 85,000 seats, but nothing more has been officially mentioned regarding this by track management since the sale of the track to ISC.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

1953-36 NASCAR Race Results

Below are the race results for 1953-36, in order of finishing place.

Fin	Driver	Num	Start	Money	Laps	Status	Sponsor
1	Jim Paschal	80	0	$1,000	200	running	Big Bear Market
2	Lee Petty	42	0	$700	200	running	Petty Enterprises
3	Bill Blair	2	0	$450	199	running	Bill Blair
4	Fonty Flock	14	1	$350	199	running	Frank Christian
5	Carl Burris	0	0	$200	194	running
6	Emory Lewis	13	0	$150	192	running	Ernest Woods
7	Bob Welborn	24	0	$125	185	running	J.O. Goode
12	Jimmie Lewallen	22	0	$25	176		R.G. Shelton
15	Fred Dove	19	0	$25	169		Fred Dove
16	Bud Harless	0	0	$25	168		Edgar Clay
20	Buck Baker	87	0	$25	127	bearing	Griffin Motors
22	Elton Hildreth	167	0	$25	66	heating	Hildreth Motors
23	Joe Eubanks	82	0	$25	55	engine	Oates Motor Co.
24	Curtis Turner	41	0	$25	46	engine	Eanes Motor Co.
25	Ralph Dutton	0	0	$25	46
26	Herb Thomas	92	0	$25	28	fuel pump	FABULOUS