1952-31 - NASCAR Race

Name of Race:	1952-31
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.

1952-31 NASCAR Race Results

Below are the race results for 1952-31, in order of finishing place.

Fin	Driver	Num	Start	Money	Laps	Status	Sponsor
1	Herb Thomas	92	2	$1,000	200	running	FABULOUS
2	Fonty Flock	14	4	$700	200	running	Air Lift
3	Lee Petty	42	11	$450	199	running	Petty Enterprises
4	Tim Flock	91	5	$350	195	running	Ted Chester
6	Bill Blair	2	12	$150	193	running	George Hutchens
9	Cotton Owens	0	16	$75	192	running
10	Ralph Liguori	0	8	$50	191	running
11	Ted Chamberlain	93	28	$25	188	running	Ted Chamberlain
13	Jim Paschal	12	10	$25	182	running	Buckshot Morris
14	Coleman Grant	0	29	$25	179	running
15	Coleman Lawrence	71	26	$25	175	running	Coleman Lawrence
16	Dick Rathmann	120	7	$25	173	rr axle	Walt Chapman
18	Donald Thomas	9	13	$25	155	water pump	FABULOUS
19	Gene Comstock	8	25	$25	152	crash	Gene Comstock
20	Bob Welborn	0	24	$25	137	steering	Julian Petty
21	Bub King	55	20	$25	120	running	Bub King
22	Perk Brown	22	1	$25	96	springs	R.G. Shelton
23	Fred Dove	19	15	$25	83	heating	Fred Dove
24	Joe Eubanks	82	3	$25	80	rear end	Oates Motor Co.
25	Jimmie Lewallen	32	9	$25	78	rf hub	R.G. Shelton
26	Elton Hildreth	167	18	$25	74	brakes	Hildreth Motors
27	Buddy Shuman	89	19	$25	37	crash	B.A. Pless
29	Jack Holloway	0	27	$25	12	crash	Jack Holloway