Sunday’s Cup race at Martinsville Speedway is an opportunity to win the iconic grandfather clock. For Stewart-Haas Racing, it’s another opportunity to continue showing progress after a frustrating, winless season.
“I’m definitely excited for it,” Josh Berry said Tuesday about his first Cup race at Martinsville. “I feel like it should be another really good opportunity for us. It seems like our cars have been strong with the short tracks.”
Martinsville is a track where Stewart-Haas Racing has consistently showcased speed in the Next Gen era. The organization may have struggled at road courses or intermediate tracks, but the four cars have been in the mix at Martinsville.
Chase Briscoe posted top-five finishes in both races at Martinsville last season while leading 109 laps. He has not finished worse than ninth in the four Next Gen races at the Virginia short track.
Aric Almirola finished sixth and second in the two Martinsville races last season while leading 66 laps. Ryan Preece led 135 laps in the spring race after winning the pole. He finished 15th partially due to a speeding penalty.
“SHR as a whole has definitely had speed at Martinsville,” Preece said. “I mean, we saw it last year with Aric and Chase there at the end of the race.”
There will be a change for this season’s races at Martinsville. The Cup cars will have the updated short track package, which they used at Phoenix, COTA and Richmond.
SHR’s drivers don’t know how their cars will handle during Sunday’s race, but they know they can capitalize by securing track position in qualifying. This will help account for a potential lack of passing.
Of course, qualifying well is only part of the process. Preece said that he needs his car to make speed in dirty air. He needs it to use multiple lanes on the track so that he isn’t stuck on the bottom or up high.
Preece’s car was lacking these qualities last weekend at Richmond, but Berry had a much better setup, going from 30th to fourth in little more than one stage of racing.
“I really enjoyed seeing the capability that (Berry’s team) had and what we’re capable of at SHR,” Preece said. “Going into Martinsville, we need that same thing. We need the maneuverability; you need to roll the center fast.”
Continuing to show speed is crucial for the organization considering the comments made by team co-owner Tony Stewart ahead of the season.
Stewart told the employees of Stewart-Haas Racing that they were not to look over their shoulders heading into the season. The organization was already at the bottom, something that Stewart said was not acceptable anymore.
“If we’re not having the results we’re looking for, we’re going to start making some major changes,” Stewart said during a Feb. 6 appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Everybody knows that. Everybody understands that.
“It’s those guys’ jobs at SHR to take what we have and make it better. It doesn’t mean we’ve got to go out and win eight or 10 races this season, but we need to see the needle move in the right direction. We need to make progress.”
Through seven races, there are signs of progress for the four-car organization boasting an average driver age of 30 and only one Cup win from its current lineup.
Chase Briscoe and Noah Gragson both have two top-10 finishes. Preece has finished better than he has qualified in all but one race. Berry has led laps in three races, showing speed at short tracks.
“If you look at where we were even six months ago, we’ve come a long way,” Briscoe said. “We still have a much longer way to go, but we’ve certainly been way more competitive.”
The first seven races have shown SHR that there is speed in the cars and that the drivers are capable.
Eliminating mistakes, nailing the setup and executing during the race weekend are the next steps.
“I told (crew chief Rodney Childers) this not too long ago, ‘Kevin (Harvick) was 800-and-something starts into racing and I’m only in the teens,” Berry said.
“So it’s gonna take a little time for me to get acclimated, to eliminate some of the mistakes that I’ve made at the start of the season. But I think we’re already seeing the potential is there. The speed can be there.”
