NASCAR: 5 Lessons Learned From The STP 500 at Martinsville

Martinsville Needs to Be Broadcast on a Major Channel

The STP 500 at Martinsville was a fantastic race. It was a short track battle filled with drivers bumping into each other to gain position. It also had a solid amount of cautions for drivers who got bumped a little too hard and ended up spinning out.

Short track racing usually makes for some of the best racing in NASCAR and because of this you would think NASCAR would want to show this race on channels like FOX.

Instead, Martinsville was on FS1 while we’ve seen other races like Atlanta, not nearly as exciting, take up TV time on a more prominent channel.

NASCAR always wants to get new eyes on the sport, yet for some reason they choose to show races like Atlanta and Texas, 1.5 mile tracks that rarely have exciting moments during the race, on FOX and push tracks like Martinsville and Dover to FS1.

Now there could be a very good reason for NASCAR making this decision; maybe the TV time on FOX is already being taken up by another sport so they must settle for FS1 for example, but this organization needs to do everything in their power to get these better races on the more well-known channels.

If NASCAR hopes to gain more fans from the racing alone, they need to display how good the racing can be and while the STP 500 was just that, new fans may not come across it because of the channel it was on.

Instead they see cookie cutter racing and just change the channel because it’s nowhere near as exciting.

One of the most important lessons learned from Martinsville is how this short track always manages to make for good race, and NASCAR needs to find a way to get this type of racing in front of potential new fans to help the sport grow.