Fans Will Get To Greet New Spoilers On Martinsville Speedway's Half-Mile Oval

MARTINSVILLE, VA –  NASCAR gave the “wing” the boot Wednesday afternoon, announcing, to the delight of race fans everywhere, that a more traditional spoiler would be added to the rear deck of Sprint Cup cars in time for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway March 28.

“Quite frankly, the wing wasn’t accepted as widely as we had hoped it would have been by competitors and fans alike,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice-president of competition. “After much effort we started looking and decided to go back to the spoiler.”

Monday morning NASCAR shipped out more than 80 of the new spoilers to all of the NASCAR Sprint Cup teams allowing plenty of time for them to be installed before the Martinsville event.

“I think it was a great move by NASCAR, especially for the fans,” said Martinsville Speedway President W. Clay Campbell. “I think that was the one thing about the new car design that just didn’t connect with fans. I think we will see a really good response from our fans with the move back to the spoiler.”

While teams are just getting the official version of the new spoilers, most have been testing with a version of it for quite a while. There was an open NASCAR test of the spoiler Tuesday at Talladega Superspeedway and there will be another test next week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. And teams have made their own trips to shorter tracks for unofficial tests to get ready for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500.

“My first reaction is that it looks better,” said Michael Waltrip Racing’s Martin Truex. “Every car I’ve ran in my entire life except the last two years had had a spoiler on it, so I feel more comfortable with (the spoiler) on the car.

“Everything we’ve done with the spoiler has gone really well. We had the Talladega test yesterday. That went very well. We actually ran it about two months ago down in New Smyrna (FL) on a short track.”

The return of the spoiler is one of several changes NASCAR has made to help increase the excitement level of the sport, including a move to multiple green-white-checkered finishes to help make sure races finish under green and the decision to let competitors be “self-policing” when it comes to on-track incidents.

“As a fan I’m excited about what we’re going to see here at Martinsville next week,” said Campbell. “NASCAR has worked hard to make things more interesting for the fans. The excitement level has always been high here at Martinsville, so I can’t imagine what it may be like with these changes.”

Tickets for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 on Sunday, March 28, the Kroger 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Saturday, March 27 and the Duracell Battery Kroger Pole Day on Friday, March 26 are on sale and can be purchased by calling 1.877.RACE.TIX. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.racetickets.com. for the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 begin at just $25.

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