By MONTE DUTTON

Martinsville. The only NASCAR track I ever wrote a song about. The basis of the song was actually a time when I got some musician friends from Kentucky tickets to the all-star race at Charlotte. Martinsville just fit the story better.

I always thought Martinsville Speedway had the sport’s most knowledgeable fans. Many times I saw a driver climb out of his wrecked car to a standing ovation of the fans who ringed the first and second turns. The fans were working people. Going from the press box to the infield meant mingling a bit. They didn’t dress the same. Some wore tan coveralls or bib overalls. They looked as if they got off the tractor, washed their faces, combed their hair and drove over to the track.

For the first decade I wrote about NASCAR, the winners came to the press box, which is now connected remotely to the infield, where the press conferences are conducted. Most reporters now work in the infield media center. I was always a press-box stickler. I didn’t want TV limiting what I saw. In the old days, though, the winning driver walked across the track, took temporary steps over the wall and walked up through the stands, fans slapping him on the shoulders as he climbed the steps. Back then, everyone in America didn’t have cell phones.

It always seemed like they were electing a governor every year. Law enforcement officers didn’t wear the same colors. Their uniforms were the same style – different-colored pockets, stripes on the pants, flat-brimmed straw hats – but some were brown and tan, some blue and gray, some green and black.

I’m sure it’s changed. Every other track has. They used to hold back the back-stretch tickets for race-day sale. Now they’re covered with banners. Freight trains ride by behind those stands. Like every other track, Martinsville put up grandstands they didn’t need 10 years later.

When H. Clay Earles was still alive, the press box was a scene from Gone with the Wind. He’d decide the fried chicken trays didn’t have enough white meat on them.

“Yassuh, Mistuh Earles. Right away.”

That’s why my song called it “a place frozen in space and time.”

For many years, Martinsville had one of the last of the old-time track announcers. His name, believe it or not, was Lewis Compton. He was at his unrehearsed best during the big Sportsman races they held. A hundred cars would show up, and the lineup would be wheedled down through time trials and heat races.

“Good goshamighty, this list here says Phil Warren is supposed to be qualifying next. I been watching Phil Warren for 10 years, and he ain’t never drove no green car, especially not no Buick! Somebody let me know who that is!”

Compton was always obsessed with telling fans to get away from the fence. “Get away from that fence! And you, boy in that checked shirt, you too young to be smoking!”

I stayed in the same motel for 20 years. When I checked out on Monday morning, I’d just tell the lady at the front desk I’d be back in the fall. I stayed so many years at the Knight’s Inn that by the time I stayed there for the last time, it was the Days Inn. It was across the state line in Eden, N.C. I learned the most scenic shortcut to the track that took me to the parking lot behind the press box without driving at all on U.S. 221, always stacked with traffic.

A restaurant outside town billed itself as Shiloh’s finest social club. It was Shiloh’s only social club. At Jose’s, one could order cornbread-wrapped mini-weenies called “pig nuts” as an appetizer. I think they had fish nuts, too. No Grape Nuts.

Clarence’s Steak House is just a mile or so south of the track. The walls had photos of all the race cars Clarence’s had sponsored over the years. It was kind of place where a hamburger steak covered up the whole plate and was covered with fries and accompanied by a cup of slaw, and that was all a man needed after a long day in the sun inhaling exhaust fumes and yelling himself hoarse.

It used to make me laugh when a young driver would say, “I grew up racing on tracks like Martinsville.” Who didn’t? About the only exceptions at the time were Juan Pablo Montoya, Marcos Ambrose and Danica Patrick. Somehow, though, most young drivers had a difficult time racing Cup cars on the little paper clip. Denny Hamlin, previously a Virginia short tracker, was one of few who was good there right away.

Tony Stewart won a pole there in his first try. That night, Jim McLaurin and I met Stewart at a nearby dirt track, 311 Speedway. The fans sitting in the same grandstand were mobbing the guy who won the four-cylinder cadet race. Meanwhile, Stewart sat unnoticed right behind them. I told him he was dressed like an artist’s depiction of the Unabomber.

Stewart told me the qualifying run meant nothing. He said the race setup was awful. I told him if he went out Sunday and won the race, I was never going to believe a word he said again. He didn’t lie. He was terrible in the race.

Tony could drive anything and still does. On another Martinsville weekend, I saw him spin out twice in the first 10 laps, then drive from the back of the field to win a USAC Midget race at South Boston, which is about 30 miles east of Martinsville. To me, it was his greatest drive. He won by nudging his teammate out of the way on the last lap.

Martinsville sold cheap hot dogs by the thousands at the concession stands, and the race winner gets a grandfather clock. It’s not the best hot dog I ever tried, but they were quite good given how mass-produced they were. By race-track standards, they were cheap.

Hell, I bet they charge five bucks apiece nowadays.

In 2023, after Furman upset Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the team that eliminated the Paladins, San Diego State, went all the way to the finals, where it lost to Connecticut, which defeated Furman this year. In short, that is why I favored UConn against Duke on Sunday.

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Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.