Are Recent Martinsville Winners More Likely to Win Now?

A lot of statistical analyses emphasize recent Martinsville winners. Most remind us of Hendrick Motorsports’ 31 wins. But I wonder whether people are over-emphasizing the importance of wins — or even recent wins? Is there any data that supports the idea that winning the last Martinsville race (like Chase Elliott) or the last Fall race (William Byron) gives those drivers higher likelihoods of winning this weekend?

How Common is Winning Consecutive Races at Martinsville?

Let’s tally drivers who have won consecutive races at Martinsville. That means either spring/fall in a single year, or fall one year/spring next year.

Since 2001, NASCAR has run 51 races at The Paperclip. Out of those 451 races:

• Jeff Gordon won the 2003 spring and fall Martinsville races
• Gordon also won the 2005 spring and fall races
• Jimmie Johnson won the 2006 fall race, the 2007 spring race and the 2007 fall race
• Johnson also won the 2008 fall race and the 2009 spring race
• Denny Hamlin interrupted the Hendrick streaks in 2009, winning the fall race, then both races in 2010
• Johnson won the fall 2012 race and the spring 2013 race.
• Martin Truex Jr. won the fall 2019 and spring 2020 races

Those seven cases looks like a pretty good argument for past success predicting near-term future success. They even include two cases in which one driver won three races in a row.

The problem applying those statistics to today, however, is that consecutive wins have happened only once in the stage racing era. They haven’t happened at all in the Gen-7 era.

So even though Chase Elliott won Martinsville in the spring, and even though HMS drivers have won six of the last 13 Martinsville races, I don’t believe that Elliott has any more chance of winning this weekend’s Martinsville race than any other Hendrick driver.

What About Spring/Spring or Fall/Fall wins?

There are definite differences between the spring and fall races at most tracks that host two races per year. So perhaps the advantage goes, not to the most recent winner, but to the winner of the same race last year. That would be William Byron in this case.

Let’s look at the theory that winning in spring of the prior year gives you good odds for winning the next spring and ditto for fall. The data show:

• Johnson won in fall 2006, 2007, 2008
• Hamlin in fall 2009/2010
• MTJ in spring 2020/2021

Again, repeat winners don’t happen frequently — and not at all in the Gen-7 era.

So There’s No Correlation at All Between Recent Wins and Running Well?

That statement doesn’t necessarily follow from the data we have thus far. So let’s examine how recent Martinsville winners finish in the next race at the track. This is a best-case in terms of comparisons because there are usually minimal changes between how well the team and driver are doing, rules changes, etc.

Excluding Denny Hamlin, who had an engine failure in his next Martinsville race, this survey covers 17 drivers in the stage-racing era.

• One driver won the next race (5.9%)
• Two drivers finished in P2 in the next race (11.8%)
• Eight of the 17 drivers finished in the top 5 in the next race (47.0%)
• 11 drivers who won a race earned a top-10 in the next race (64.7%)
• The remainder (6 of 17 or 35.3%) finished between 11th and 22nd.

How do those numbers change if we limit the data to the Gen-7 era? That’s only seven races, so their predictive value is much weaker. But here they are:

• No driver who won a Gen-7 race at Martinsville finished better than fifth in his next race at the track.
• Five of the seven finished fifth, sixth or seventh (71.4%)
• The other two finishes 11th and 16th.

So winning a recent Martinsville race doesn’t raise the likelihood that you’ll win the next one. I say that with the caveat that this is based on minimal data. However, I wager there’s something else going on we need to address.

Why Don’t Recent Wins Predict Future Performance Today?

My opinion: I think it’s because we’re in an age of greater parity, not just between teams, but also within teams. That’s a product of two things: The Gen-7 car and the plethora of high-quality drivers.

Parity Between Teams

Tighter rules and spec parts prevent a team from gaining an advantage for very long. NASCAR has become much more proactive in making mid-season corrections when a team does find something. We’ve seen that already this season with the stiffening of the splitter struts.

Since 2017, wins at Martinsville are divided almost equally between Joe Gibbs Racing, Penske Racing and Hendrick Motorsports, with one win by now-defunct Stewart Haas Racing.

Team	Number of Martinsville Wins 2017-present	Percent of Martinsville Wins 2017-present
Hendrick Motorsports	7	36.8
Joe Gibbs Racing	6	31.6
Penske Racing	5	26.3
Stewart Haas Racing	1	5.20

If we consider all 70 races at Martinsville, HMS had 31 victories (44.3%) compared to JGR’s 15 wins or 21.4%. But those long-term stats don’t reflect the current reality. The times have changed and Martinsville no longer belongs to Hendrick.

In addition, there are more mid-tier teams that are valid contenders today. Back in the day, we had top teams and also rans. But 23XI, Spire and RFK all won races this year. Before 2026, I would have added Trackhouse to that list. So even though the dominant teams still win the majority of the races, there are a large number of cars capable of winning any given race.

Parity Within Teams

At one time, Hendrick Motorsports was Jeff Gordon. Then it became Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, then Johnson. The other drivers lived mostly in the shadows of these giants.

Today, at least three of the four drivers HMS drivers could win any given race. The seven Hendrick Motorsports Martinsville wins in the table above represent wins by all four current HMS drivers. Gordon and Johnson each won nine times at Martinsville, accounting for well over half HMS’s 31 wins.

This year, Kyle Larson has been the dominant Chevy driver in The Chase, while JGR’s plethora of riches works to their disadvantage. The three JGR drivers are in second, third and fourth place entering Martinsville, with eight wins between them. They are competing against each other, while Larson is carrying the banner to rally the Chevys.