Martinsville Speedway's future secured

MARTINSVILLE — Martinsville Speedway President Clay Campbell spoke with NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon at Bristol Motor Speedway before last weekend’s race and Gordon told him, “Hey Clay, you have two.”

Gordon smiled as Campbell left, with the number two symbolizing the number of trips NASCAR’s top series will be returning to Southside Virginia each year for the foreseeable future.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling announced Thursday afternoon that Martinsville Speedway will continue hosting two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races for at least the next five years — a major relief to the track after years of speculation that the 0.526-mile oval would lose one of those race weekends.

“We were determined to do anything we reasonably could do to make sure we maintained these two Sprint Cup races at Martinsville every year,” Bolling said. “We had a willing partner in International Speedway Corporation. ISC, I think, understands that Southern Virginia is a part of the home of NASCAR. They understand that these short track races are important and once we were able to show them that we were willing to step up to the plate and be a partner in the effort, they responded very positively.”

Bolling said the Commonwealth will provide more than $2 million per year to improve the Martinsville race experience, with $400,000 going toward improving the local roads and highways — including a new ramp on U.S. Route 58 adjacent to the speedway.

In addition, the Virginia Tourism Corporation has invested $200,000 in a marketing campaign for motorsports and NASCAR in Virginia to help promote four annual race weekends in Richmond and Martinsville.

“I think psychologically, it would have been a hard hit for us to have lost a date with everything else that we have lost, the jobs we have lost in the area,” Delegate Danny Marshall said. “We have got to make sure that we keep this. The numbers speak for themselves. It’s so dagone high as far as the economic impact for not just Martinsville, but people stay in Greensboro (N.C.) and they also stay in Roanoke — quite a long ways away. It’s a real impact to the region.”

According to a study, Bolling said that the two race weekends in Martinsville provide a $170 million economic impact to the region, including $13.2 million in state and local tax revenue. The area sees a jump of 2,824 jobs that come with race weekend.

If Martinsville held only one race weekend per year, the initial estimates projected $75 million annually lost in the area and approximately 1,000 jobs eliminated.

“You could take a date from some other track and it wouldn’t have near as impact that it would if you took it from here,” Campbell said. “It would be a devastating blow to our economy, to our locals and one quite frankly we couldn’t afford to have. The state recognized that, everybody that we had up here today understood the impact that losing this race would have and they buckled down and got together and we went in the same direction and got this accomplished.”

The Virginia Tobacco Commission awarded the speedway a $1.5 million grant that will be matched by the speedway to assist in upgrading the facility’s infrastructure. That, along with the $2 million provided by the Commonwealth for each of the next five years, guarantees the generation of $375 million in local fiscal impact over that time.

“We are in the heart of the racing region,” Rosalee Maxwell, Danville’s Director of Tourism, said. “Racing probably fills overall the biggest leisure — hotel rooms — of any other recreational activity here. … It’s a big quality of life issue for our city and counties residences. It’s a big family activity and it would be a shame to lose it.”

Virginia is the only state that hosts four races on the Sprint Cup Series schedule — two dates at both Richmond International Raceway and Martinsville Speedway (the Bristol Motor Speedway is actually located in Tennessee). Florida hosts three Sprint Cup Series races with two at Daytona International Speedway and the season-finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

When NASCAR recently released its 2011 schedule, Atlanta Motor Speedway — one of the Sprint Cup’s original superspeedways that has hosted two dates for 50 years — lost a date to Kentucky Speedway. It was another date lost for one of the original tracks in the Southeast, but Thursday’s announcement ensured Martinsville kept its two dates.

“I’m extremely happy that they’re going to keep the races there. I love Martinsville. Mike Smith and Clay Campbell do a great job, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Trucks, Late Model or Cup,” Camping World Truck Series driver Timothy Peters said. Peters is a Danville resident, a Providence, N.C., native and two-time winner at Martinsville. “With the races being here, it does nothing but help the city of Martinsville, the city of Danville and the surrounding areas. All the greats of our sport have raced there. … I think it’s a home run.”