Aaron McFarling

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MARTINSVILLE -- You know who's in trouble? Averett University basketball. I'm not sure they're going to have uniforms next year, or at least they won't if their budget is funded by their concession stand profits from Sunday's race at Martinsville Speedway.

The poor kid in that booth Sunday. Bundled up in a hooded sweat shirt, blowing on his hands, waiting for customers.

They weren't going to come, and I'm pretty sure he knew it. Not when the sign on his booth advertised only one type of goods: "Cold drinks."

Hey, why not sell Bermuda shorts while you're at it? On this windy, rainy, gloomy, 39-degree day, it probably would have sold just as well.

Jeff Gordon nailed it Sunday. The first time somebody handed him a microphone after Sunday's Cool Orange 500, Gordon didn't talk about trying to chase down race winner Denny Hamlin in the final laps. He didn't talk about tires or pit strategy or the positives of finishing second.

Instead, he saluted the toughest people at the track.

"You've got to thank all those fans for sticking it out," Gordon said. "That was unbelievable. I could see what was happening on my windshield; it looked like it was snowing out there."

Might have been. Honestly, I'm not sure.

I stepped out of the warm, comfy press box about 100 laps into the 500-lap race and headed down to the grandstand to get a sense of the conditions.

I lasted about 20 minutes. The icy wind whipping my face scored a decisive victory, sending me crawling back into the heated booth.

The rest of these thousands of people here didn't have that luxury. But there they stood, bundled up in winter jackets, clutching cups of coffee and cocoa with gloved hands, cheering on their favorites.

Amazing.

They're either hardy or loony or a little of both. But the one thing they definitely are is passionate, and they proved that by showing up on time and staying till the end. It's easy to arrive in Oakleys and cut-off jeans for a sun-splashed day at the racetrack -- and Martinsville has hosted plenty of those types of days over the years -- but what these patrons chose to endure Sunday takes heart.

"It's pretty cool that they did," Gordon said. "It shows what kind of loyal fan base we have."

NASCAR attendance has been in the news a lot lately. It's down this season at many Sprint Cup racetracks, and with Martinsville having the smallest seating capacity on the circuit, the old speedway is under more pressure than most of the others to sell out its races and show that it's beloved.

The box score says this was a sellout, but understandably, bodies didn't match numbers. And I'm sure the television cameras hammered that fact home every time the cars whipped around turn 3 and past those chunks of empty seats.

But in brutal weather like this, it's better to view this as a case of "mostly full" than "partially empty." The fans made a positive statement Sunday about racing in general and Martinsville Speedway in particular.

"I've seen worse conditions, but I've never seen worse conditions where we were actually running green-flag laps," said Gordon, a 15-year veteran of the Cup Series.

"When you get out of the car and you feel how cold it is, and steam's rolling off your body and it's raining almost like sleet, and you look up in the grandstands and [see] those folks stuck around.

"I'm just glad they got to see a good race."

They did. They got to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. lead some laps and Gordon lead some laps and Jimmie Johnson lead some laps.

They got to see the top spot change ownership 20 times.

They got to see wrecks and spins and a Virginia native take the checkered flag.

From start to finish, it was among the best Martinsville races in years.

Denny Hamlin tried to celebrate with a burnout. But the track was way too cold and wet for the tires to kick up any smoke.

The fans cheered anyway, then scurried off to find some heaters of their own.

As they did, it all became pretty clear. The cold-drink peddlers might have been in trouble Sunday. But NASCAR, at its core, was not.