Martinsville’s first “Strictly Stock” (Cup) event was held September 25th, 1949. 10,000 fans came out to watch 15 cars race the .526 mile track. Red Byron wins with Lee Petty in second. It was Red’s only start in a Cup race here. One other driver has one win in his only start. 21 drivers have started here and not finished the first lap, one of them twice. 607 different drivers have started a Cup race here, 230 of them never came back, and only 121 of the 607 (20%) have more than 10 starts here. The track has hosted 115 Cup races for 1,407,688 total laps. That’s 740,444 miles around the “paperclip” shaped track. Other than the paving of the track in 1955, the basic design hasn’t changed. Fred Lorenzen won 4 in a row here in ’63-’64-’65; he is the only one to do this. Buddy Arrington started 42 races here, and never finished on the lead lap. But the two names that dominate the history books here are Richard Petty and Darrel Walthrip. They are the only two drivers with double digit wins, a combined 26. Their average start was 10th, average finish 11th. They won 1 out of every 5 races they started here. The only driver to beat that stat is Jeff Gordon, who wins 1 of every 4.