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MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- At first sight, there's little special about this track. Martinsville Speedway is flat. The corners are tight. The infield cramped.

This track has been called a parking lot, and there's even been a suggestion to fill the infield with water and make it a pond. Yet, this track exudes charm to fans. And anguish to many drivers.

While Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have combined to win nine of the last 12 NASCAR Sprint Cup races here, others can't figure it out.

Kyle Busch, among the most talented drivers on the circuit, simply says of Martinsville: "I don't feel comfortable here."

Matt Kenseth, a former champion, concedes that this is "just a particularly frustrating race track."

Kevin Harvick says this is a taxing track, something Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Clint Bowyer and others agree.

Busch's results might show he's all but conquered this track with three top-five finishes, but Busch says that's not the case.

"For some reason, Denny (Hamlin) runs well here, and I'm not sure why I can't get my stuff to run well here because we have the same stuff," Busch says of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate who won this race last year. "It's been bothering me this whole time."

Kenseth says he knows what his problem is, he just hasn't found a way to fix it.

"I think my biggest problem probably all the time here has been giving the right information to the crew," said Kenseth, who has finished outside the top 10 in six of the last nine Martinsville races. "It's not that hard of a track to drive around, but it's really hard for me to dissect the car with what it's doing and what I need to change to make it feel what I want."

Jeff Burton says the track's uniqueness makes it difficult to perfect. He notes that it's difficult to learn much at any other place that helps at this paper-clip shaped track. When the series heads to Phoenix next month, Burton says there's enough similarities to help teams learn what to do at Richmond in May. Martinsville, though, is all but an island to Burton.

"So, the rate of learning is low at this race track," Burton says. "When you get behind here, it's hard to catch back up because how you learn is so different here."

Harvick says what makes this track difficult for some is that it goes against racing principles. Fast isn't always good at this half-mile track.

"This is a tough place to get around because it's so easy to overdrive, and it's so tempting to go ahead and do that," he said. "The first time (at Martinsville), it was bad. The second race we came here and it wasn't much better.

"There's a fine line, I guess you can say, on how hard you can drive the car here without just totally screwing the thing up to the point where you can't make the thing work."

Once, a driver figures out Martinsville, Tony Stewart says, it gets so much easier.

"When you have a good weekend, the next time you go back it's just easier to try to go back and mimic that feel," says Stewart, who has two wins at this track. "That's why when guys hit on something, they're normally good for a while."

Even for those who are good, it's not easy.

"Mentally, it's one of the toughest race tracks because you have to hit your line every time, it's very critical that you're within an inch or two off the curb at times," Hamlin says. "To hit that line just right every time is very, very tough."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com