NASCAR goofed moving Martinsville-Talladega duo

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From 1972-2004, NASCAR's Sprint Cup race schedule had a neat quirk in it -- the series raced at Martinsville Speedway then headed south to Talladega Superspeedway. The only exception was in 1997 when the road course in Sonoma, Calif., was inserted between the two Southern dates, breaking up that oddity.The quirk, of course, was this: Martinsville represents the shortest track on the schedule, a literal half-mile bullring, while Talladega is the longest superspeedway that NASCAR visits. And the difference from one weekend to the next was the most extreme in racing.In Virginia on a temperate spring afternoon (which last Sunday wasn't, by the way), drivers faced the grueling chore of earning every position, lap by frustrating lap, in quintessential short-track racing, by bumping, shoving and hit-and-running.Nerves of steel aren't required; the controlled calm of the Amish is. If a driver is upset by a little contact, then he may spontaneously combust due to Martinsville's maddening mayhem.Once that experience was over, it was on to Alabama where those nerves of steel were mandatory during high-speed, three- and sometimes four-wide racing. Contact? Well, forget about too much of that.Unfortunately, that little bit of character contrived by those in Daytona is gone. In 2005, Jeff Gordon won at Martinsville in early April and had to wait three more weekends before winning again, at Talladega on May 1. Races at Texas and Phoenix were sandwiched in between, and it's a shame the schedule currently remains that way.If the schedule-makers had left well-enough alone, Denny Hamlin would be rolling in to the heart of Alabama today with a chance to do what only one driver in the history of NASCAR had been able to do -- win at Martinsville and Talladega on back-to-back weekends. David Pearson did it in 1973, the second season the series began running the races consecutively.Do you think Denny Hamlin, if he had been the second to turn the trick, would have been happy to be mentioned in the same breath as the Silver Fox? The 27-year-old Hamlin is relatively young by the sport's standard, but the Virginia native knows his NASCAR history and would have relished the Pearson comparison.The difference in the schedule now as to how it was in 2004 isn't anything major, but covering all types of tracks determines our sport's champion. Martinsville and Talladega are racing bookends, corralling every facility that falls under the category "All other tracks."I'm sure the historic old speedway in Southern Virginia had something to do with the extreme sense of nostalgia that engulfed me last weekend. But hey, every time I enter the track, I'm overwhelmed by the speedway's deep-rooted history and significance, dating all the way back to its first race over 60 years ago.In a time when casual fans are claiming races are boring -- and subsequently tuning out -- and others are saying it's only necessary to watch the last 10 laps, a tweak or two in the schedule could help NASCAR regain a little color and character.(Bill Whitehead covers NASCAR for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. E-mail him at wwhitehe@ircc.net.)