The 2006 Subway 500 was the 32nd stock car race of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the sixth in the ten-race Chase for the Nextel Cup. It was held on October 22, 2006, before a crowd of 65,000, at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia, United States. Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson won the 500‑lap race starting from the ninth position; Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing finished second, and Bobby Labonte of Petty Enterprises was third.
Jeff Burton was the driver who led the Drivers' Championship going into the race with a 45-point margin over Matt Kenseth in second. Kurt Busch won the pole position with the fastest lap time in qualifying. He was immediately passed by Jeff Gordon at the start of the race. Gordon held the lead for 143 laps, until Johnson took the lead for one lap. Gordon regained the lead on the next lap, only to lose it to Johnson again on the 153rd lap. Labonte moved into the lead on lap 406 and held it with 55 laps remaining when he was passed by Johnson. At the race's final restart on lap 495, Hamlin challenged Johnson for the lead, but the latter held off Hamlin's passing maneuver and won the race. There were 18 cautions and 16 lead changes by five different drivers during the race.
It was Johnson's fifth win of the 2006 season and the 23rd of his career. The result advanced him from to third in the Drivers' Championship, 41 points behind Kenseth (who took over the championship lead when Burton retired during the race; this caused Burton to fall to fifth in the championship, one point behind Hamlin). Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, 53 points ahead of Dodge, and 61 ahead of Ford with four races left in the season.
Background
The Subway 500 was the 32nd of 36 scheduled stock car races of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the sixth in the ten-race season-ending Chase for the Nextel Cup. On October 22, 2006, it was held at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia, a short track that holds NASCAR races, and ran for a total of 500 laps over a distance of . The standard track at Martinsville Speedway is a four-turn, paperclip-shaped oval. Its turns are banked at eleven degrees, and neither the front stretch (the location of the finish line) nor the backstretch is banked.
Before the race, Jeff Burton led the Drivers' Championship with 5,763 points, with Matt Kenseth second on 5,718 points and Kevin Harvick with 5,674 points in third. Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were fourth and fifth, and Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top ten drivers competing for the 2006 Chase for the Nextel Cup. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet led with 237 points; Dodge was second with 179, followed by Ford with 173. Gordon was the race's defending champion.
After falling from seventh to tenth in the Drivers' Championship at the previous race (at Charlotte Motor Speedway), Gordon said he would try and win races to return to contention for the championship. Jeff Burton called the Subway 500 "another volatile race in the Chase" and thought it would significantly impact the chase contenders. Although Kenseth felt the race would be the toughest for his team, he believed a good finish would put him in a better position for the championship because of his good results at the tracks following the Martinsville race. After a good finish at Charlotte, Earnhardt felt he was in "good shape": "Jeff has been at this a long time, but I don't look at him as indestructible. If he has a mistake or even a couple of bad runs, it will completely shake up the points." After winning the Busch Series championship, Harvick focused on the Nextel Cup championship: "We're excited about it, proud of what we've done this year, and, hopefully, we can do what we need to do on the Cup side in the next five weeks. I have never had a season like this." Hamlin thought he would perform well at Martinsville, where he felt comfortable. He and his team did not rule themselves out of contention for the title.
In preparation for the race, NASCAR held the last of its test days for Nextel Cup entrants on October 16–18 at Homestead–Miami Speedway. Sessions began at 1:00p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), paused from 5:00 to 6:00p.m., and concluded at 9:00p.m. Fifty-eight cars, a mix of Cars of Tomorrow and 2006 cars, participated in the October 16 afternoon session. Reed Sorenson was quickest with a speed of , and Casey Mears had the highest speed of in the evening session. During the third session (with 75 cars), Kyle Busch had the fastest speed of ; Gordon had the highest speed of the three days, at in the fourth session. During the fifth session, on the afternoon of October 18, 23 cars were tested. Scott Wimmer had the highest speed of , and Jeff Green had the highest speed of in the evening session.
There were 50 cars represented by 3 different manufacturers entered for the race from a total of 29 teams. One team substituted for its regular driver. Morgan–McClure Motorsports driver Todd Bodine decided to concentrate on the Craftsman Truck Series title and was replaced by Ward Burton, the 2002 Daytona 500 champion. Burton, who had not raced since 2004, went to Motor Mile Speedway to reacquaint himself with NASCAR. According to crew chief Chris Carrier, Burton expressed a large amount of interest in driving at Martinsville: "He's a Virginia driver and we're a Virginia team. That makes for a great combination at Martinsville." On October 18, Roush Racing announced that Craftsman Truck Series driver David Ragan would drive the 06 car in four of the season's five remaining races beginning with the Subway 500. Ragan said the experience would help him prepare for his full-time début in 2007.
Practice and qualification
Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race: one on Friday and two on Saturday. The first session lasted 90 minutes, the second 60 minutes, and the third 45 minutes. In the first practice session, Gordon was fastest with a time of 19.478 seconds; Ryan Newman was second and Hamlin third. Johnson took fourth position, and Dave Blaney placed fifth. Kurt Busch, Sterling Marlin, Green, Sorenson, and Kahne rounded out the session's top ten drivers. Martin switched to a back-up car after he crashed.
Fifty cars entered qualifying on Friday afternoon, due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, only forty-three could race. Each driver ran two laps, with the starting order determined by the competitor's fastest times. Kurt Busch clinched his sixth pole position of the season, the ninth of his career and his first at Martinsville, with a time of 19.408 seconds. He was joined on the grid's front row by Gordon, who was 0.038 seconds slower and had the pole position until Kurt Busch's lap. Hamlin qualified third, Newman fourth, and Tony Stewart fifth. Blaney was sixth, with Earnhardt and Green seventh and eighth. Johnson, a Chase for the Nextel Cup driver, qualified ninth, and Ken Schrader rounded out the top ten qualifiers. Harvick, another driver in the Chase, set the twelfth-fastest time. The seven drivers who failed to qualify were Mike Bliss, Hermie Sadler, Chad Chaffin, Morgan Shepherd, Ted Christopher, Derrike Cope, and Stanton Barrett. After the qualifier, Kurt Busch said, "It was a great lap, unexpected for me, but this team has always qualified well at this track, Martinsville is the kind of track that you either love or hate, and I've learned to do both. It's a tough, challenging short track."
On Saturday morning, Marlin was fastest in the second practice session with a time of 19.668 seconds. Positions two through ten were occupied by Kahne, Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Mears, Johnson, Hamlin, Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, and Jeff Burton. Of the other drivers in the Chase, Kyle Busch was 13th-fastest and Martin 19th. During the second practice session, Scott Riggs had an engine failure in the session's opening minutes and changed engines. Later that day, Johnson led the final practice session with a 19.722 lap; Harvick, Biffle, Marlin, David Stremme, Hamlin. Earnhardt, Kyle Busch, Gordon, and Mears were in positions two to ten. Other Chase drivers included Jeff Burton in 17th and Kahne in 17th; all were within one-tenth of a second of Johnson's time. The session was suspended when Kenny Wallace's engine blew up since the track then needed to be checked and cleaned, and Wallace changed engines. Jarrett spun out with a brake problem, but since he made only minor contact with the wall, he did not have to switch to a back-up car. After a similar collision, Michael Waltrip also did not have to switch cars.
Qualifying results
Grid No. Driver Team Manufacturer 12 Penske Racing South Dodge 19.408 97.568 224 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 19.446 97.377 311 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 19.484 97.187 412 Penske Racing South Dodge 19.489 97.162 520 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 19.514 97.038 622 Bill Davis Racing Dodge 19.557 96.825 78 Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 19.567 96.775 866 Haas CNC RacingChevrolet 19.597 96.627 948 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 19.631 96.460 1021 Wood Brothers Racing Ford 19.635 96.440 1196 Hall of Fame Racing Chevrolet 19.646 96.386 1229 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 19.660 96.317 1340 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 19.676 96.239 1445 Petty Enterprises Dodge 19.683 96.205 155 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 19.690 96.171 1641 Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet 19.699 96.128 1710 Evernham Motorsports Dodge 19.709 96.078 181 Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 19.724 96.005 1942 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 19.726 95.995 2017 Roush RacingFord 19.737 95.942 2125 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 19.740 95.927 2214 MB2 MotorsportChevrolet 19.750 95.879 2301 Ginn Racing Chevrolet 19.752 95.869 2426 Roush Racing Ford 19.755 95.854 256 Roush Racing Ford 19.776 95.752 267 Robby Gordon Motorsports Chevrolet 19.780 95.733 2799 Roush Racing Ford 19.791 95.680 2831 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 19.797 95.651 2938 Robert Yates Racing Ford 19,811 95.583 3043 Petty Enterprises Dodge 19.818 95.549 3132 PPI Motorsports Chevrolet 19.845 95.420 329 Evernham Motorsports Dodge 19.850 95.396 3355 Waltrip-Jasper Racing Dodge 19.866 95.319 3419 Evernham Motorsports Dodge 19.867 95.314 354 Morgan–McClure MotorsportsChevrolet 19.869 95.304 3618 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 19.872 95.290 3707 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 19.894 95.185 3816 Roush Racing Ford 19.904 95.137 3988 Robert Yates Racing Ford 19.908 95.118 4078 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet 19.919 95.065 4106 Roush Racing Ford 19.939 94.970 4234 Front Row Motorsports Chevrolet 19.964 94.851 4372 CJM Racing Chevrolet 19.965 94.846 4449 BAM Racing Dodge 19.993 94.713 4500 MBA Racing Chevrolet 20.146 93.994 4661 Front Row Motorsports Dodge 20.213 93.682 4789 Shepherd Racing Ventures Dodge 20.217 93.664 4827 Kirk Shelmerdine RacingChevrolet 20.231 93.599 4974 McGlynn Racing Dodge 20.277 93.387 5030 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet 20.551 92.142
Race
Live television coverage of the race began at 12:32p.m. EDT in the United States on NBC. Commentary was provided by Bill Weber, Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach Jr. Rain showers were forecast for the day of the race, and at the start, weather conditions were overcast, and some rain had already fallen. The air temperature was around . Cleaning trucks cleared the track before the start. Eldrid Davis of Raceway Ministries began pre-race ceremonies with an invocation, the Martinsville High School marching band performed the national anthem, and Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle commanded the drivers to start their engines. During the pace laps, Riggs and Wallace moved to the rear of the grid because they had changed their engines.