France later became a partner in the speedway, and the track has been host to 92 races in his organization's top level since Buck Baker won the first Grand National division race there in 1956. Two Winston Cup races are still run each season at the track, which in 1947 had only 750 of its proposed 5,000 seats ready for the first race. The event still drew more than 6,000 paying fans, with most of them going home covered in red dirt from the track's surface. Today, the Martinsville track covers more than 300 acres. It will have 86,000 seats by the time it hosts its first race of the 2000 season on April 9.
Every day brings new challenges and ideas.
And if we're not going forward, then we are going backward and that's not going to happen. Mr. Earles was born on a tobacco farm in Axton, Va., on Aug.11, 1913. Educated in a one-room schoolhouse, he sold unwanted leaves from his father's crop to make his first money at age 5. He also worked as a grocery clerk and in a furniture factory. He owned a pool hall and opened the Travelers Inn, Martinsville's first drive-in restaurant.