Was Martinsville the best 2009 Sprint Cup race?

March 30, 4:20 PMDetroit NASCAR ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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Great racing at Martinsville (John Harrelson/Getty Images)

I often don’t spend time reviewing races. Since I believe the people reading this who cared about the race, actually watched the race, however in this case I want to make an exception. Since I, and the people I watched Martinsville with, thought this was the best race of the 2009 Sprint Cup season.

For the NASCAR fan this race had it all; a bump and run at the end, a few dominate cars leading the way, several top cars having significant issues, and of course a few guys getting in the way. This is the kind of action I expect from a NASCAR race, and for the first time in 2009 it did not fail to meet my expectations.

A while back I wrote a column asking fans to pick their favorite shirt track on the Sprint Cup schedule. Then I argued that Bristol was a better track then Martinsville. I now believe that I wrote that based on the old Bristol, before the track was repaved into a multi grooved race track.

I still do believe that Richmond offers the best racing of the three short tracks, but based on yesterday I would have no problem moving Martinsville into second well ahead of the new Bristol.

Overall this is the best overall race telecast of the 2009 season. Sure there is stuff hardcore NASCAR fans still don’t like, DW’s Boogities, Digger, and the like but overall this was a great race. NASCAR needs to figure out how to have this kind of action each and every week and then the ratings will not fall anymore.

Jayski is reporting that the overnight rating for Martinsville is down 16% over this race in 2008. However the 4.9 overnight rating matched that of Bristol one week ago. In terms of audience retention Martinsville is a big winner.

Also the 16% decline between this race and its 2008 counterpart is consistent with the ratings drop of all the 2009 ratings. Over the last three races the ratings have been down an average of 17% compared with 2008.