Yesterday I took off with my Nikon camera, driving around the area to take some photos…nothing special, just messing around. I decided to take a run by Martinsville Speedway, and as luck would have it, one of the gates to trackside was open, so I went inside and snapped this from the middle of turn 4, where most of the wrecks happen. The wall usually is full of paint smears from cars running into it, but it's been repainted for the upcoming season. The racing surface was completely re-done a couple of years ago, and you can see it's still looking almost new. As I stood there, I remembered the time when a piece of concrete from the old surface came loose in turn 3 and hit Jeff Gordon's front bumper, to the delight of most of the 65,000 or so fans in attendance. By the time he got to turn 4, his race was over. In case you wondered, they stopped the race for about an hour while they did a quick repair, which held up quite well for the remainder of the 500 lap event. I was sitting right between turns 3 and 4, so got to see it all up close. It won't be long until the place is roaring again… March 29th for the Goody's 500. Can't wait.
