Welcome to The Pace Lap, your catchall preview post! Let's get you started on race weekend with a metric truckload of stats, facts, opinion and innuendo.
The race: The Tums Fast Relief 500. (The spring race was also named for a pain medication. What's in the water in Martinsville where everybody's always in pain, huh?)
The specs: 500 laps around a 0.526-mile track, for 263 miles.
The broadcasts: ABC, plus the live chat right here on Yahoo! Sports.
Defending champ: Jimmie Johnson, edging out Jeff Burton above. Get used to hearing that name a lot over the next few lines. (Johnson, not Burton. Sorry, Jeff.)
The standings leaders: Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin (-90), Jeff Gordon (-135)
The history: The Paperclip is one of NASCAR's oldest tracks, built in 1947, and also its smallest. With its 12-degree banking, Martinsville makes brake pedals work harder than Junior defenders in 2009. There's always the chance for a field-altering wreck, and with such a short track you can find yourself two laps down in the blink of an eye.
Back in the springtime: Although he got into it a bit with Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson nonetheless won the day at the Goody's Fast Relief 500. Uh-oh.
The appropriate video: Here are the final laps from the spring. If you're a Jimmie hater, prepare for a little more grist for the mill:
Guy with the most to gain: Jeff Gordon. He's been the forgotten man in this Martin-Johnson chase, but he's making some real headway against the rest of the field. He's almost as good at Martinsville as Johnson, but will "almost" be anywhere close to good enough this weekend?
Guys with the most to lose: Tony Stewart. All season long, he was running in first, and he's run a solid Chase. But he's got to make up ground fast. The year's already a phenomenal success for Smoke, but he can't be happy about getting this close and not closing the championship deal.
Our pick to win: Gordon, primarily because we've used up all our Johnson picks in fantasy. But barring disaster or a supreme gamble, this is going to be another Hendrick-dominated weekend.
All right, you're up. Who's your pick for this weekend? Go!
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