RIDGEWAY, VA :: The Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 at Martinsville Speedway has earned a quick reputation of anything goes in the closing laps of a last chance race or the 200-lap feature. That belief was confirmed on Sunday evening near the end of the latest running of Late Model Stock’s wildest spectacle.
Lee Pulliam was the leader on the penultimate restart but was crashed entering turn one when Deac McCaskill stayed in the throttle and shoved the defending two-time NASCAR All-American Series champion around and out of contention.
That’s not meant to vilify McCaskill or deify Pulliam who similarly moved Matt McCall two years ago to win this race with an approach that many called have deemed ‘dirty racing’ in the years since.
Martinsville seems to bring out the best and worst of the Late Model contingent and the latter gives off the impression that there is an increasing lack of respect amongst drivers, especially at the end of the season when so many rivalries have been established over the preceding nine months.
But Dennis Setzer — one of the more respecte
d figures in the garage — says that isn’t the case.
“I think the cars are so equal and the guys are driving so hard that this is just a byproduct of the racing,” he said. “I appreciate the good reputation that we’ve earned but we would have raced hard on the last lap too if we had the chance.”
Setzer insists that he should have been placed on the outside of the first row on the final restart. But regardless, Setzer believes the track conditions and the importance of the race just lends itself to this kind of racing.
“It’s a preferred groove track and guys are fighting tooth and nail for that bottom line,” he continued. “If you’re trapped on the outside, you’re waiting on the chance to get down there or for your spotter to clear you. And there are a lot of younger guys in these cars and sometimes inexperience causes a lot of this.”
A considerably younger (18-years old) Hayden Woods doesn’t entirely disagree.
“It’s definitely a big race and guys are giving it all they’ve got,” Woods said. “It’s Martinsville. I don’t know how many times I said that today. You have to be more forgiving because there is so much on the line.
“Drivers have a unique relationship with each other. There’s the one on the track where you’re aware of what that driver is done but we can certainly be cordial with each other and say ‘how are you doing?’”
So the consensus is that while tension is high at big events like Martinsville, the drivers still have a tremendous amount of respect for each other, even during the moments they don’t like each other. And after a wild night in Virginia on Sunday, there’s not a lot of friendship to be had.
