Martinsville at its best ... like old times

Jeff Gordon said it best:

"This was old-school Martinsville, today."

It was. And it's about time. I tweeted to @MRNRadio before the race that "the most entertaining races are a crew chief's nightmare," after they interviewed Paul Menard's crew chief, Slugger Labbe, who said that's exactly what this race would be.

For a very, very long time, we've been greeted with snooze-fests at most tracks for a various number of reasons. Enter this new Generation 6 car. Well, I'm not exactly sure if the car was solely the reason for the fantastic racing Sunday in the STP Gas Booster 500 — your winner, in dominant fashion, being Jimmie Johnson.

That old grandfather clock that Johnson received in Victory Lane sure makes you think of old times. And what happened on the track Sunday did the exact same.

But as Johnson cruised for most of the day, outlasting Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon on a restart with 9 laps to go for his 62nd career victory, what we saw through the middle of the pack was exactly what old-school NASCAR is all about.

No, I'm not talking about the bumping and banging and the damaged cars and the wrecks. I'm not talking about the bump-and-run, and the see-ya-later spins. I'm talking about the strategy due to handling issues and tire wear.

Goodyear, with the old COT car, had to design a harder tire to cope with the cumbersome body and weight of that ride. But with the new car, it seems like they've been able to soften the tire, allow for wear and make the teams save their stuff for the long runs. That's why you saw a guy like Jeff Gordon really come on at the end of the long runs — he knows how to drive an old-school NASCAR.

It makes for a boring race when cars stay in basically the same positions on the run after a pit stop. And whoever has the fastest car has to do nothing but drive hard with no give-up in the tires. We saw what NASCAR used to be — and should be — at Martinsville on Sunday.

There were comers and goers. Every run, from 4th-20th, there were cars falling back and cars coming forward. And some of the cars that came forward early in the run fell back as the run went on. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's due to the softer tire that wore more, and the drivers who took care of their stuff all day (and not necessarily just the fenders, just look at Bowyer's 2nd-place ride) ending up toward the front.

This made for some strategy.

Take, for example, Brad Keselowski and Marcos Ambrose.

They pitted on the second-to-last round of stops with around 45 to go. Keselowski gave up ninth and Ambrose 11th to come in. They restarted around 14th and 16th, respectively, but look what happened. The Blue Deuce of Keselowski stormed through the field and nearly nipped Kyle Busch for fifth at the line. Ambrose was one of those cars who got worse and worse as a run went on and ran just above 20th all day after getting caught up in a mid-race wreck. But playing the strategy perfectly — and having the opportunity to do so because of the fall-off in tires — allowed them to storm through and get the No. 9 Stanley team an eighth place, its first top-10 of the season.

And a mid-race move by Mark Martin's FedEx crew (that sounds weird) to take two tires when everyone else took four sent him straight to the back. That's how Martinsville should be. And that's what provides for an entertaining race. 

But, if you're one of those "fans" who mindlessly follow NASCAR for the beating and banging, the new car/soft tire combination gave you guys what you wanted, too. Throughout the run, cars fell off — the mid-pack drivers came through and bumped, and beat, and banged their way through the field.

The only way the race could have been better is if Johnson wasn't so dominant, making for more parity at the front of the field. But you can't blame him for that. You can blame NASCAR for a lot of things that have gone wrong in the sport over the past 10 or so years — the boring racing being Public Enemy No. 1. But it looks like they've really tried to fix it.

Denny Hamlin had it right. After the first two races, the Gen6 provided the worst racing at Daytona I've ever seen — ever — no exaggeration. And at Phoenix, it wasn't great, but it was better than the recent past. Bristol was fantastic, even though I prefer the old, run-the-bottom, non-momentum track I fell in love with as a child. And the Gen6 — if, in fact we can lay all the praise on the car — gave us the most exciting race I've seen at Auto Club Speedway, with a down-to-the-wire finish between Hamlin and Joey Logano, with Kyle Busch sneaking through for a last-lap pass for the win. (California Speedway, for those of us who remember the good ol' days and who still refer to NASCAR's second-tier series as the BUSCH Series). "Hey, what are you doing at 1 on Saturday?" ... "Sittin' down and watchin' the Busch race," is how the conversation still goes.

But this was vintage Martinsville, where a really good car could storm through the field on new tires, and those who saved their stuff were there at the end. It wasn't a drive-your-brains-out-and-the-tires-won't-fall-off-at-all borefest.

Hopefully NASCAR gets the plate package sorted out by the time the July Daytona race comes around. But as for short track racing, things are looking up in NASCAR.