Tracking Glory with Hal Martin

This past weekend, I raced at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the “Hub Track” of NASCAR. It is aptly named because the track is situated within an hour of 90% of the race teams in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. It is known as the home track for my team, TriStar Motorsports. The track boasts high speeds with enough banking to promote great side-by-side racing, which was the case in the History Channel 300 this past weekend.

This week’s race was surrounded by great excitement with the local area holding many events for fans making the trip up to the Charlotte area. I attended many events to sign autographs and meet fans leading up to the race. I really enjoyed being able to interact with and meet many of the great people that make our sport what it is and allow me to do what I enjoy doing – race.

The race week was a busy one with practice starting on Wednesday. My team and I used Wednesday to get up to speed and allow for me to learn the track, as I had never raced around this fast 1.5-mile quad-oval speedway. Wednesday was a great day for me as I was able to really learn my lines around the track and search for grip in the track as the temperature changed throughout the practice session. Thursday was yet another practice day, and we were able to turn more laps around the speedway in an effort to build some adjustability into our racecar. We were able to set the car up for long runs, which we expected for the race.

Saturday started out with qualifying, and unfortunately, we struggled in qualifying setup trim. I was only able to time in 36th fastest. Even though we qualified toward the back of the field, I was confident that we would race much better, and we did. I was able to quickly work my way up through the field and before the first pit stop found myself in the 31st position. After that initial pit stop, the car got even better, with more rubber being laid down onto the speedway as more laps were raced. It is typically very difficult to pass cars on the 1.5-mile speedways because of the aerodynamic disadvantages with racing close at these tracks, but our #44 American Custom Yachts Toyota Camry was not affected much by the aerodynamics. I was able to steadily race the rest of the event and finished the race in the 23rd position, matching my best finish in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. My entire team was excited about our weekend, and I look forward to my next race. At this time, my next race is unannounced, as my sponsorship was for the first 10 races of the season. But I will certainly be back behind the wheel racing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series again soon.