Advance Auto Parts 500 (Cup)

The Cook Out 400 is an annual NASCAR Cup Series stock car race held at the Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia. It is the first of two Cup Series races at the track, the other one being the Xfinity 500 in the NASCAR playoffs.

The race was previously 500 laps in length before it was shortened to 400 laps starting in 2022.

Unlike other races which the winner receives a trophy, the winner of this race and other NASCAR races at Martinsville receives a grandfather clock, which has been a tradition since 1964.

History

The race had no name from 1950 to 1955, before taking the name Virginia 500 in 1956.

Goody's Powder, which was the title sponsor of the spring Martinsville Cup Series race from 1996 to 2000 and the fall Martinsville Cup Series race from 1983 to 1995, returned as the title sponsor of the spring race in 2007 to promote their new orange-flavored brand, Cool Orange, with the race title being Goody's Cool Orange 500. During this time, this race was the sixth race of the season and the first race where the current season's owner point standings were used to determine which cars were "go-or-go-homers" and needed to qualify into the race. (For the first five races, it was the previous season's owner point standings used to determine which cars were locked in the race.)

From 2008 to 2012, the fall Cup Series race at Martinsville was sponsored Tums, which was owned by the same parent company (British pharmaceutical conglomerate GSK plc) as Goody's. In 2013, they reduced their title sponsorship to only the fall race with Goody's replacing Tums as the brand that was advertised in the race sponsorship. Legendary NASCAR and Richard Petty sponsor STP became the title sponsor of the spring race starting in 2013 and remained through 2019.

In 2020, Blue-Emu took over naming rights for the race as part of a multi-year deal with NASCAR.

In 2022, the race was shortened to 400 laps. In 2023, The NOCO Company, which makes car parts such as batteries, battery chargers and jumper cables, replaced Blue-Emu as the title sponsor of the race. In 2024, the race had another new title sponsor, Cook Out.

Notable races

*1953: Herb Thomas was originally declared the winner, but a recheck showed that he had been credited with an extra lap.
*1971: Controversy dogged Richard Petty's win as he lost his gas cap (dry-break fuel couplers were not mandated until 1974) during the race but was not black-flagged; there had been incidents of drivers flagged to get gas caps under green.
*1973: David Pearson won his first short track race since 1971, driving the Wood Brothers Mercury.
*1976: Darrell Waltrip took the win, the first for the DiGard Motorsports Chevrolet.
*1979: Richard Petty posted his first win in a Chevrolet and first short track win since 1975.
*1981: Morgan Shepherd stunned the field with his first career Winston Cup win. It also marked the first victory since October 1963 for the Pontiac nameplate, who had been on a seventeen-year hiatus from NASCAR. Of Shepherd's four career victories, this was the only one at a track other than Atlanta.
*1982: After nearly a dozen second-place finishes, Harry Gant

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases