NASCAR and Martinsville go way back. Recent playoff history with Chase Elliott, others

Martinsville Speedway and NASCAR were both birthed in 1947 and haven’t strayed from each other in the 77 years since.

The half-mile track (.526 to be exact, roughly 45 yards longer than a half-mile) is located a stone’s-throw north of the North Carolina-Virginia line, about an hour north of Greensboro and Winston-Salem.

That seems like quite an outpost for a sport that seemingly outgrew such locales with the passing decades, but Martinsville survived. It helped that there was always some ownership interest with NASCAR management, and the organization has been sole owner since 2004.

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After an opening season of modified racing in 1948, NASCAR ran its first “strictly stock” series in 1949 — it’s known as the Cup Series today. It was a humble, eight-race schedule, and Martinsville was the sixth stop.

The history pages say 10,000 fans watched Red Byron win by three laps over runner-up Lee Petty. It was the second of Byron’s two wins in his brief career, and he made them count — he was NASCAR’s original champ in ’49.

When NASCAR’s top division expanded to 19 races in 1950, Martinsville got two race dates and it’s been that way ever since. The second race has almost always been near the end of the season, and four years ago it replaced Phoenix as the next-to-last date on the schedule — Phoenix was moved to the championship finale, replacing Homestead-Miami.

As it’s done these past four years, Martinsville’s checkered flag will set the championship field for Phoenix. If you’re looking for trends to help handicap the final stop on the Round of 8, don’t look here.

Three times, the Martinsville winner was a Round of 8 participant, once he wasn’t. Two races were fairly clean, one kind of clean, and the other was a real mess. Twice, the Martinsville winner went on to win the championship the following week, which means twice he didn’t.

Three times the winning margin was less than a second, but once it was 6.5 seconds, which is about a third of a lap around the paperclip-shaped layout.

Let’s recap the past four years with Martinsville serving as Race 35 for NASCAR’s Cup Series.