The STP 500 is an annual 500-lap NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held at the 0.526-mile (0.847 km) Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia. It had no name from 1950 to 1955, before taking the name Virginia 500 in 1956, the other one being the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Longtime sponsor GlaxoSmithKline returned as race sponsor for the 2007 spring race with their new orange-flavored brand with the race title being Goody's Cool Orange 500; the Goody's 500 was originally the name of the fall race, which since 2008 has also been sponsored by the British pharmaceutical conglomerate, as the TUMS QuikPak 500.
The race on April 1, 2007, was the second race for NASCAR's car design, the Car of Tomorrow. This event is currently the sixth race of the season, the first race where current points standings (instead of the previous year, as in the first five races) determine exemptions. Denny Hamlin is the most recent winner of the race, having won it in 2015.
STP may refer to:
The 2015 STP 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race held on March 29, 2015, at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia. Contested over 500 laps on the 0.526 miles (0.847 km) paperclip shaped short track, it was the sixth race of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Denny Hamlin won the race while Brad Keselowski finished runner-up. Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth and David Ragan rounded out the top five.
Joey Logano won the pole for the race and led 91 laps on his way to a third place finish. Kevin Harvick led the most laps – leading 154 – on his way to an eighth place finish, ending an eight consecutive race streak of finishing first or second. The race had 31 lead changes among 13 different drivers, as well as 16 caution flag periods for 112 laps.
Hamlin's 25th career victory was his fifth win at Martinsville Speedway and the eighth at the track for Joe Gibbs Racing. The win moved Hamlin up to eighth in the points standings, which were still headed by Harvick; he left Martinsville with a 24 point lead over Logano. Despite being the winning manufacturer, Toyota still trailed Chevrolet by 37 points in the manufacturers' standings, in third place.
The 2014 STP 500 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race that was held on March 30, 2014, at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia. Contested over 500 laps on the 0.526 miles (0.847 km) oval, it was the sixth race of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Kurt Busch won the race, his first win with Stewart-Haas Racing, breaking an 83-race winless streak. Jimmie Johnson finished second, while Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Joey Logano, and Marcos Ambrose rounded out the top five. The top rookies of the race were Austin Dillon (15th), Justin Allgaier (23rd), and Kyle Larson (27th).
On the final lap of the Auto Club 400, Kyle Busch passed his brother Kurt Busch and held off a hard charging rookie Kyle Larson to win the race. "Holy cow, what do you expect when you have a green-white-checkered finish and everyone comes down pit road to put on four tires," Busch said. "That's a Days of Thunder thing right there. What do you mean, there's two laps to go, everybody is to pit, Cole. I came off the fourth turn in disbelief that we won this thing, because we were mediocre all day. It was really weird for us, not a race that we're typically used to. But now there's a load off your shoulders that you can go out the rest of the season and race the way you want to." After winning his first Nationwide Series race the previous day, Larson stated that it had "been a really good weekend" and that he had been battling "probably a 12th place car for most of the day".