I occasionally have to go all fanboy-homer in this space. This is one of those times. Last week was not one of those times, even though some have accused me of displaying some blatant Jimmie Johnson homerism in last week's column.

This week's lovefest is all about Martinsville Speedway. And Johnson didn't win. Hell, he didn't even lead a lap.

But as a race fan, you couldn't ask for a better showing than the boys put on Monday at Martinsville. Too bad there were only a couple thousand people there to see Denny Hamlin and his one good knee bull rush through the field to take the victory when Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon got together on that last restart. That's the product that NASCAR needs to be selling - that side-by-side, ultra-competitive short track racing.

Here's the problem: After that great race, albeit on a Monday, all I read about all week is how Martinsville stands to lose a race in all the shuffling that is bound to happen in 2011.

I honestly think these people are insane.

If NASCAR takes a race from Martinsville, I'm done. I will quit following NASCAR and try to convince the fine people at this paper to let me write about something else.

The NASCAR schedule will surely look a lot different in 2011. International Speedway Corporation-owned Kansas Speedway wants a second race. So does Speedway Motorsports Incorporated's Las Vegas Speedway. Fellow SMI track Kentucky Speedway is all litigious about getting a Cup date.

So all the pundits have Martinsville with a bullseye. I say nay.

There are 15 other tracks that should lose a race before Martinsville gets the short end of the stick. I have endured loss of races at my home track, Rockingham, Darlington Raceway and North Wilkesboro, so any loss at Martinsville would be too much.

Take a race from California - no one there cares about that track. Or Pocono. Two prime dates at that track is a shame. New Hampshire is terrible. That's three dates right there. One race each for Kansas, Vegas and Kentucky. Problem solved, and your 2011 schedule is set.

Except for one thing for Martinsville - change that spring date.

I have been making the two-hour trek to the paperclip for eight years now. Since the date changed from late April to late March in 2007, the weather has been a crapshoot.

The schedule makers at NASCAR must not own a map. Martinsville Speedway is in the mountains (ish). It's cold in March. It rains. The whole property turns into a muddy mess. Over the last few years, it's always a debate of whether or not to make the trip because the weather is always questionable.

It's almost like NASCAR is doing to Martinsville what it did to Rockingham. Rockingham is a miserable place in February. I know because I have lived here most of my life.

It rains. It snows. But NASCAR kept pushing the date further up into the teeth of the bad, unpredictable weather until it reached the point that people quit coming.

Short track racing is what made NASCAR. Now, there are only three tracks less than a mile in length on the circuit (the three tracks looking to add races are all 1.5-mile tracks).

It has been that way for a while, but now the rumblings are about taking one of those short track dates. NASCAR needs more race days like it had Monday, not less. I just don't think the sport can take any more watering down of their product.

In other words, we need a hell of a lot more Martinsville. Not less.