Commentary By: Langley Austin ~ langley@RACE22.com

Ridgeway, VA(September 17, 2010) -- We finally got to make the trip back to Martinsville Speedway for some Late Model Stock Car testing, granted we were a week earlier than originally planned, but it still felt like an eternity from last years checkered flag to the first engine firing at the historic half-mile track.

Checking out and covering testing Wednesday was a blast ... it was getting to see old friends who I haven't seen a lot of this season, it was getting to be back in the Media Center with Mike Smith again and just plain feeling at home. You can check out our LIVE Coverage of Testing yesterday, which included Video, Photo, Audio and text updates on Replay here ...

Here's a few things we learned yesterday to get you even more up to speed on everything that is Martinsville Speedway and this years Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 ....

NO REPEAT THIS YEAR ...
When Jake "The Snake" Crum drove his heart out last fall first to get to the front and secondly to hold off the hard charging cars of Brennan Poole and Brandon McReynolds, it was a dream come true. Since then, Jake has been behind the wheel of a Late Model Stock Car only three-times missing the big race last fall at South Boston and Myrtle Beach and he also competed in a mid-summer UARA race at Hickory.

He also has been wheeling a Super Late Model and has done so succesfully winning three races already this season at Newport Speedway and he also got a great opportunity at Bristol Motor Speedway to compete in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. There he took a start and park truck and qualified it solidly and looked poised for a top 15 finish, when he was squeezed into the wall by his teammate while passing him for position. Needless to say it hasn't been the season that you expect a Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 winner to have to follow up what is easily the biggest win of his career.

Unfortunately for Crum, racing isn't like it used to be, raw talent and ability behind the wheel of a racecar is less important today than how many zero's someone puts at the end of a check. While he doesn't haven't have the funding like the kids of NASCAR royalty, he does posess the one thing that few of them do and that's the raw talent that can take a good car and turn into doing a burnout on the front stretch at the end of Late Model Stock Car racing's biggest race. With that win and a UARA-STARS Series championship under his belt, the line of people wanting to field a car with this kid behind the wheel of it, should atleast have a couple people in it, but this year unless something changes, Crum won't be in the biggest race of the year.

He was slated to drive a Marlowe chassis owned by BJ Mackey, who was his crew chief last fall when he took a family owned car that was old and worn out to victory lane. Mackey couldn't get the funding that he needed to put Jake behind the wheel of his car and thus putting both of them on the outside looking in for the biggest race of the year. If there's someone out there that has the equipment capable of winning at Martinsville and isn't just looking for a driver with a checkbook, they need to give Crum a call, because he proved last year that he could win it all if only given the chance.

TO SCUFF OR NOT TO SCUFF ...
When the first drivers meeting of the day commenced at Martinsville Speedway for test day number one of two this year, it was announced that there would be a scuff session prior to qualifying this year. It was set to be ten 'hot laps' done at speeds comparable to practice speeds and then the cars would line back up to qualify. Of course, it didn't take long for drivers to begin to complain and when the time came for the second drivers meeting it was announced that there wouldn't be a scuff session for qualifying and everything would remain like it's been for years.

WHO'S REALLY FAST ...
I know many of you tuned into to our LIVE Five Star Bodies Full Blown Coverage presented by Hedgecock Racing Enterprises to find out who the fastest cars at the track were and while I'm not discounting the times that we got, most of which I did by hand with a stopwatch myself, I know we missed some impressive times. Take Jamey Caudill for instance, we clocked him at 20.760, but we all know he was much faster than that, many people think he may have laid down the fastest time of the day right before the track was silenced yesterday evening.

See the problem is Martinsville Speedway doesn't use transponders for the test, I don't know why because even the drivers want them used so that they can keep up with their times and those of others, but for some reason we're left relying on stopwatches. Of course, we can't clock every lap that every driver turns and that was just the case with Caudill, who I believe is probably one of this years best picks for not only the pole, but the win. He reportedly turned a lap of 20.179, just a tick under the fastest time we got at a 20.190 turned by Lee Pulliam, but we didn't get to report the time, because we didn't get it on our stopwatch.

STACK 'EM UP ...
Everyone wants to know who's going to be the guys to beat at Martinsville and while I don't have all the answers, I saw some stuff yesterday that might just help me look like I've got a crystal ball. It isn't always about the fastest lap, sometimes it's about the laps turned when the driver is on 50-lap old tires and making a 20-lap run that can tell you everything you need to know about how this race could play out aside from the luck factor. As much as I was keeping an eye on how fast someone was on stickers and early on, on good tires, I was also keeping an eye on those guys who weren't just throwing stickers at the car to speed up and was busy finding speed for a long run.

One of those guys that seemed to be on that program was Philip Morris, who usually easily finds himself atop the board in practice and testing as he's always got that brute speed on stickers. However, this year he was finding speed on older tires and he himself said that he "has the best car he's ever had at Martinsville" and that isn't a real good sign for his competition. Matt McCall, who was easily in the top three on the speed charts was also looking pretty sporty on a long run as he had his Fat Head Racing, Marlowe Chassis strolling all day long. Brandon Butler wasn't one of the cars going into the day that everyone was watching, but more than once I was asked on pit road "Who's in that 29 car?" as people started taking note of his speed and upon finding out who was in the car, all stop watches were running when he was. Butler could easily make a splash this year like he did last and is hoping not to get caught up in a late race accident and play out what could be his best chance to win this race.

Stacy Puryear is another that you can put in that category as the veteran racer wasn't one of the guys everyone was watching, but he was quietly clicking off some impressive laps never bolting on a set of stickers. On our stopwatch he turned in a decent lap of 20.682, but I talked to many who said he turned in a high 20.30 and several low 20.40's, so he's certainly going to be one to watch. With that said, I'm not ready to stack these guys up yet ... I'll wait until the week of the show and through this next test session before I give you my list of the drivers to watch come October 2-3!

TOGETHER AGAIN ...
When Brandon McReynolds rolled back into Martinsville Speedway, he did so with his former crew chief, Nick Hutchins by his side as the two were back together again. Hutchins left at the end of last season when McReynolds was planning to move up to ARCA with an established team, but when those plans turned into just a few races McReynolds hired David Mercer of Mercer Race Car Engineering to crew chief his car in two starts this season. The first came in a wreck-filled race at Southside Speedway, the Denny Hamlin Foundation race and the second ended in victory lane at Rockingham Speedway in a UARA-STARS Series race.

McReynolds is now preparing to race his Late Model Stock Car a little more to end this season and Hutchins wasn't having the kind of success that he or his driver, Kyle Grissom had hoped for this season, so the door opened for them to team back up. With Hutchins back, McReynolds found himself easily in the top ten on the speed chart for testing at Martinsville and the two hope to be back together for a while as they try to duplicate the success they had last year in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300, where McReynolds finished second in a heated green, white, checkered finish with Jake Crum and Brennan Poole.

ONE DOWN, ONE TO GO ...
With the first of two tests this year at Martinsville Speedway in the books, it's now time to turn our attention to the second test date, which will be this coming Wednesday, September 22nd. This is the test where the pits will likely be filled to the brim and everyone will get down to business and the speeds will likely pick up for everyone and of course, we'll be there to cover it every minute of the day.