1952-05 - NASCAR Race

Name of Race:	1952-05
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.

1952-05 NASCAR Race Results

Below are the race results for 1952-05, in order of finishing place.

Fin	Driver	Num	Start	Money	Laps	Status	Sponsor
1	Dick Rathmann	120	9	$1,000	200	running	Walt Chapman
2	Bill Blair	2	6	$700	200	running	George Hutchens
3	Perk Brown	22	10	$450	199	running	R.G. Shelton
4	Lee Petty	42	11	$350	199	running	Petty Enterprises
5	Bobby Courtwright	0	20	$200	197	running	Bobby Courtwright
6	Neil Cole	0	19	$150	189	running	Neil Cole
8	Herb Thomas	92	2	$100	174	running	FABULOUS
9	Frankie Schneider	88	7	$75	171	spindle	Clark-Warwick
10	Jim Paschal	60	14	$50	169	heating	Julian Buesink
11	Tim Flock	91	3	$25	162	spindle	Ted Chester
12	Curtis Turner	41	4	$25	162	wheel	Eanes Motor Co.
13	Buddy Shuman	17	18	$25	150	running	Buddy Shuman
15	Fonty Flock	14	5	$25	138	crash	Frank Christian
16	Jimmie Lewallen	24	17	$25	118	crash	Southern Motors
17	Charles Gattalia	128	13	$25	94	spindle	Colonial Motors
18	Joe Eubanks	82	8	$25	74	steering	Oates Motor Co.
19	Donald Thomas	72	15	$25	68	rf hub	Doug Meeks
20	Buck Baker	89	1	$25	29	hubs	B.A. Pless
22	Shorty Gibbs	0	16	$25	11	h gasket	Shorty Gibbs