THE INDISPUTABLE TOP THREE

Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have dominated at Martinsville the last five years.

I don’t normally look further back than two or three years tops when analyzing any kind of track averages. But, it’s such a glaringly obvious statistic when looking at the Driver Finish Positions by Track at Martinsville Speedway it is worth the note.

There is hardly a finish worse than 4th among them during that time.

Jeff Gordon came in 20th in the Tums Fast Relief 500 here last October but that is because Kurt Busch punted him into the wall. Prior to that run-in Jeff Gordon had been running in the top-9 the whole race. Leading at the half-way point and already led 11% of the laps.

No matter how you slice them up these three drivers are “must runs” for your fantasy NASCAR team this weekend at Martinsville. It could be just what Denny Hamlin needs to get his 2011 NASCAR season on track (and start earning all the points that we expected when we drafted him for our “set ‘em and leave ‘em” fantasy NASCAR games before the season started).

Behold the perfect NASCAR driver at Martinsville Speedway

MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY SPRING RACES (03/09 & 03/10)

1. Denny Hamlin: 2nd & 1st (avg finish 1.5)
2. Jeff Gordon: 4th & 3rd (avg finish 3.5)
3. Jimmie Johnson: 1st & 9th (avg finish 5.0)

MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY LAST TWO YEARS

1. Denny Hamlin: 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st (avg finish 1.3)
2. Jimmie Johnson: 1st, 2nd, 9th, 5th (avg finish 4.3)
3. Jeff Gordon: 4th, 5th, 3rd, 20th (avg finish 8.0)

MARTINSVILLE SPEEDWAY LAST THREE YEARS

1. Denny Hamlin: 1st, 5th, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st (avg finish 1.8)
2. Jimmie Johnson: 4th, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 9th, 5th (avg finish 3.6)
3. Jeff Gordon: 2nd, 4th, 4th, 5th, 3rd, 20th (avg finish 6.3)

When looking at the Driver Averages by Track charts (located in the top navigation under ‘INTERACTIVE STATS’ and playing with the different races to include in your results don’t forget to re-order the table by the Average Finishes (Fin) column.

The table is sorted initially by total points scored.

TWO MARTINSVILLE YOUNG GUNS

There are a couple of drivers I hadn’t expected to see doing so well at Martinsville in their short NASCAR Cup Series careers.

Read more…