Racing Industry Continues to Set Fast Pace
arrington manufacturing, booby hamilton racing, clay campbell, craftsman truck series, kevin harvick racing, martinsville speedway, martinsville-henry county, old dominion university, patrick henry community college, phcc motorsports students,
When racing enthusiasts hear the word Martinsville they still think of Martinsville Speedway, as well they should.
The motorsports industry is running as smoothly as a fine-tuned engine these days in Martinsville-Henry County, and there is no braking in sight.
The .526-mile oval, affectionately known as The Paper Clip, has been hosting NASCAR races since 1949. Today it welcomes two annual NASCAR Sprint Cup events with each pouring an estimated $30 million into the local economy.
“Go back in time 50 years, and Martinsville was known all over the world for our furniture manufacturing and our textile manufacturing,” says Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway. “But in the past five or 10 years, textiles have gone away and furniture manufacturing has been drastically reduced. But Martinsville Speedway remains a reliable constant that continues to grow.”
That growth in 2008 has included doubling the size of the track’s media center and installing a video scoreboard in the infield.
“The scoreboard is 120 feet high and can be seen by each of the 65,000 fans that pack our grandstands for every Sprint Cup race,” Campbell says. “Also in 2008, we removed all asphalt pavement in the pits and put in concrete. It’s all an effort to always provide great entertainment in racing.”
And racing is becoming so much more in Martinsville-Henry County.
In late 2007, Bobby Hamilton Racing relocated its entire operation from Mt. Juliet, Tenn. to Martinsville. After driver Bobby Hamilton succumbed to cancer in January 2007, his wife, Lori, created a partnership with a handful of new owners in Virginia and moved the team to better align with Dodge engineering and Martinsville based-Arrington Manufacturing, known for its strong track record in the industry. Company owner Joey Arrington is one of the new part-owners in the team.
Today, BHR-VA fields the No. 4 and the No. 18 Dodges in the 2008 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. And in a stroke of fate, driver Dennis Setzer drove the No. 18 Dodge to victory at Martinsville Speedway on March 29, 2008.
“We all said after Bobby passed away, if we couldn’t do it with him, then we would do it in honor of him,” Hamilton says. “To win at Martinsville, our new home track, was amazing.”
Near the Arrington Complex is Patrick Henry Community College, which introduced a motorsports program in 2001. Its Virginia Motorsports Technology Center has an enrollment of 80 students.
“Students who know about performance engines, fabrication and car setup is what racing employers want, so that’s what we teach,” says Jeff Fields, PHCC dean of applied science and engineering technology.“We have
some former students now working at Bobby Hamilton Racing and Kevin Harvick Racing. One even became a NASCAR inspector.”
PHCC sponsors a late model car that students build and race at Martinsville Speedway and South Boston Speedway. Plans are in the works to build an all-new $8.5 million motorsports center on campus in the near future.
“We also partner with Old Dominion University with their four-year bachelor’s degree in motorsports engineering technology,” Fields says. “Students can take two years at PHCC and the final two years at Old Dominion offered in partnership with the New College Institute. Racing is big these days in Martinsville, and our PHCC motorsports students are big into racing.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
Photo by Ian Curcio
