Tim Horrigan's NASCAR Page
Copyright © 2006-2008 Timothy Horrigan
Summer is A-Racin' In!
It may still feel like winter, but summer is here: the 2008 Nascar season is underway!
I guess I qualify as a Nascar fan, even if I am an effete Northeastern liberal. I am also very peripherally involved in the sport as an active participant. For the past several years, I have been working on race weekends at New Hampshire International Speedway (I suppose I should use the new name "New Hampshire Motor Speedway") in Loudon, NH. My first event was the Fall 2001 race, which was moved from the weekend after 9/11 to the Friday after Thanksgiving. I usually work at what my supervisor describes as my "Home Away From Home", Unit 61 (not to be confused with Area 51), an NHIS souvenir tent near the end of the main grandstand.
There probably are thousands of Nascar-related web sites out there, so there might not be much I need to add.
Three of my favorite Nascar-related web sites are:
I am working on an epic poem entitled Loudon Blues which is partially about racing and which was named after the racetrack. Click here to read a few excerpts.
I hope to add more content as the Nascar season progresses. For now, here's what I got....
My brief Loudon guide (see below)
My
Brief Loudon Guide
Here
are a few (hopefully) helpful pieces of info about New
Hampshire International Speedway. I have worked there (in the
souvenir department) since 2001 and I plan to return in 2008.
All remarks are strictly my own personal opinion.
Around
Halloween in 2007, rumors began circulating that Bob Bahre, the owner
of the track, was finally going to sell the place. Bahre quietly
confirmed those rumors on November 1st in a phone
interview with the Boston Globe's Michael Vega.
I will miss Bob Bahre: he is a wonderful, down to earth fellow. The first time I met him, he was walking out of a restroom with a clear plastic bag of garbage in his hand (presumably this bag was the liner of the loo's trash can.) Even though he is a multimillionaire, he still helps take out the trash.
Although he looks much younger, Bob Bahre is 80 years old and ready to retire. His son Gary is an executive at the track, but Gary has frequently expressed the desire not to take on the burden of owning the place. So, the time has come to sell.
I have no inside knowledge about the sale of the track, although I can say that back in September I made a joke at the front desk about how us track workers would all have to wear straw hats if Jack Roush bought the track. (At the time, there were rumors that Roush, who is rarely seen in public without his straw hat, and the owners of the Red Sox— who also own half of Roush Fenway racing— were thinking of buying NHIS.) One of the managers behind the desk laughed and told me that Roush was not going to buy the place. (The reason I was hanging around the front desk is because the souvenir department is housed in the same building as the executive offices.)
We now know that one of the giants of the race track industry, Speedway Motorsports Inc., is buying the track for the (pretty big) sum of $340 million.
The sale may mean a major change in the schedule. SMI already owns six tracks: Charlotte (Nascar's flagship track), Texas, Bristol, Sonoma, Atlanta, and Las Vegas. SMI has long been trying to get Las Vegas a second date, and they would have carte blanche to move NHIS's dates around or even close the place down altogether. Luckily, New England is a great market and the Bahres have managed to sell out every Cup event in the track's history. But that may not be enough to convince SMI to maintain the status quo. Immediately after the sale, only one change was announced: the track will be renamed "New Hampshire Motor Speedway" to fit in with SMI's other oval tracks which are all named "[Whatever] Motor Speedway." But more changes are surely on the way.
A lot of the speculation about possible schedule changes seems a little uninformed. Supposedly, Las Vegas is certain to get a new date because it's a great tourist destination and the track's events have strong support from the local community. However, New Hampshire is also a great tourist destination and NHIS/NHMS has also enjoyed strong support from the Granite State's government and business community. And Boston is a much bigger media market than Las Vegas. Moreover, New Hampshire's mid-September date is supposedly going to be swapped with Texas's early-November date because the first weekend in November is the beginning of deer-hunting season in Texas. However, we do have deer in New England too and we do go out and shoot them in the fall. (Not me personally: I don't hunt. But many of my neighbors do.)
The big problem with moving Loudon's fall race to November isn't the weather per se. They have races in Atlanta and Bristol in March, both of which are places which have all four seasons, including winter. But there isn't very much daylight in Loudon in early November, six weeks past the autumn equinox. And currently, just to make things even worse, the first Sunday in November just happens to be the day Daylight Savings Time ends. If the 2008 Sylvania 300 were to be held at Loudon on November 2, 2008, the sun would be rising at 6:23 am and setting at 4:36 pm Eastern Standard Time (as opposed to a 6:25 am sunrise and 6:57 pm sunset Eastern Daylight Time on September 14.)
The facility itself could probably use upgrading: it is a great place to spend a weekend, and it is located in the heart of the most beautifuk state in the Union, but the track is nothin' fancy. Ironically, even though the Boston media are still amazed (even after almost 20 years of racin') that there is a Nascar facility just a few dozen miles north of the Hub of the Universe, Loudon is in fact a reflection of Nascar's Appalachian roots: it's a no-frills joint set in an out-of-the-way community in the hill country.
Speaking of out-of-the-way tracks in hill country, Bahre used to own 50% of the venue which hosted the final race of the first Nascar season in 1949— North Wilkesboro Speedway in Wilkes County, North Carolina. The other co-owner was Bruton Smith, the CEO of SMI. Bahre and Smith bought the track in 1996 for its two Cup race slots: the races were moved to New Hampshire and Texas. The track is still standing and is still in not-that-bad-considering condition. So, even if worse comes to worst, and Loudon loses both its Cup races, at least we can expect that the track itself will still be there for years to come. (SMI ended up owning 100% of North Wilkesboro as part of the NHIS deal, by the way.)
See:
When and Where
Traditionally, there are two Nascar weekends per year at Loudon, one in June or July (generically known as the New England 300, currently sponsored by Lenox/Irwin Industrial Tools, which is a division of the same conglomerate which makes Rubbermaid and Sharpie products.) and one in mid-September (generically known as the New Hampshire 300, currently sponsored by Sylvania.)
The July race in recent years marked the beginning of the second half of the season, being the the 19th of 36 points races, taking place on the second or third Sunday after the Fourth of July. In 2007, the race was moved up to the Sunday before the Fourth, i.e., July 1, 2007. This made it the 17th points race of the season, i.e., the beginning of the so-called 10-race "Race to the Chase" series. The schedule change was fortunate since there is now a Busch Series race in early August in Montréal, which is not far from Loudon. The month-long interval leaves a little extra time for Quebecois fans (who are très fanatical) to rest up between events and save up a few more loonies and twonies to buy more hats and T-shirts.
The fall race traditionally marks the beginning of the 10-race Nextel Cup Chase for the Championship series. (The September race weekend coincides with the onset of the "leaf peeping" season in northern New England and also in Quebec: a detour to the north before or after the race is highly recommended!)
This year's Sprint Cup events will be:
The Lenox Industrial Tools 301 (Sunday, June 29, 2008) — yep, that's right, they are going the extra mile this year
The Sylvania 300 (Sunday, September 14, 2008)
The street address of the track is: 1122 Route 106 North; Loudon, NH 03307. (This is almost certainly not where you will end up parking your car, however!)
Loudon is a rural community in central New Hampshire, about 8 miles north of the state capital of Concord, and 15 miles south of Laconia. The official PR materials say that the track is an hour north of Boston. You would have to drive like Kurt Busch to make the trip in an hour, but Boston is not very far away. Fans come from all six New England states, Quebec, Atlantic Canada, Upstate New York, and even from the New York City area.
The track is located on Route 106, which roughly parallels Interstate 93. On race days, traffic is very heavy on Route 106, and also on the main east-west highways leading to and from Concord (Route 4 and Route 9.) Getting out after the race is harder than getting in before the race. The post-race traffic is mostly heading south, so if you go in some other direction you can avoid some (though by no means all) of the insanity. The hard part of the trip is getting to I-93. Just north of Manchester, there is a toll booth (which now takes E-ZPass) and a fork in the road. The 3-digit alternative, I-293 (which eventually becomes US 3) is actually a more direct route than I-93 proper to most points south.
On Sundays, unless you're driving a shuttle bus or an emergency vehicle, you cannot drive past the track: after the race, Route 106 will be one way south to the south of track and one way north to the north.
Parking is not inexpensive ($20/day is about as low as it goes, unless it's bundled with your ticket package), but there's plenty of it. There are free shuttle busses which run up and down Route 106. You can also park in Concord and take a pay shuttle bus.
The only motel in Loudon proper is a Red Roof Inn on Route 106. Laconia and Concord have a full assortment of hotels and motels, including the ubiquitous chains. Manchester has an even wider assortment. There are many other towns with places you could stay. Fans stay as far away as Portsmouth, which is about 40 miles east of the track.
Tickets
The Sunday Nextel Cup events are usually sold out, although occasionally the track does find that it has a few tickets to sell. In 2007, the track apparently had more unsold tickets than usual. Throughout the spring of 2007, NHIS bought lots of regional TV and radio time. This is not exactly unusual, except that the ads were hawking Sunday Cup tickets, not just Friday and Saturday undercard tickets. You can find out out about ticket availability by logging onto the track's web site: http://www.NHIS.com
There are always tickets available on a walkup basis for the Thursday through Saturday programs, although the best seats do sell out far in advance. You might be able to see at least part of the Cup qualifying on Friday for free, since the track traditionally sends the ticket takers home and opens the gates up to all comers near the end of the day.
"Scalping" tickets is perfectly legal in New Hampshire, though the track still tries to discourage such activity. You will, as you would expect, find quite a few ticket dealers camped out on Route 106 on race day, though not on the race track property itself.
The tickets don't become physically available until a few weeks
before the event, so anyone offering advance tickets on
eBay, StubHub.com
and other internet sites
is (most likely) selling tickets which they don't actually have
physical possession of yet. Caveat emptor.
(But: Go ahead and click here to check out the deals on eBay!)
The Track Itself
The track is a paperclip-shaped 1.058-mile oval (hence the nickname "Magic Mile".) The Nextel Cup races are scheduled for 300 laps, which is 317.4 miles. (There is also a road course, which uses the frontstretch, Turns 1 & 2, and part of the backstretch of the Nascar track, while also looping through the infield and up the grassy knoll behind the backstretch.)
There
is one long grandstand (the Loudon Stand) extending the length of the
frontstretch, and smaller grandstands wrapping around Turns 1 and 2
(the Concord Stand) and Turns 3 and 4 (The Laconia Stand.) The
Laconia Stand is currently used only on Sundays. There is also a
grassy knoll on the backstretch where fans can stand and watch the
race. Track workers sometimes jokingly refer to the grassy knoll as
the "Pittsfield" stand (after another neighboring town.)
There are no lights: there are various conflicting stories as to why
there aren't any.
Visibility is outstanding: fans have a great view of the pits and garage area, as well as of the far side of the track. The grandstands are unshaded. The seats are, in most cases, long aluminum benches: butt pads are a good investment. The simple seating aside, the amenities are outstanding: the staff (especially myself) are friendly and there are plenty of restrooms and concession stands. You can bring limited quantities of beer onto the track property, but no alcohol is for sale. Now that Winston is no longer a Nascar sponsor, no tobacco is available either. (Back in the day, Winston used to give away free cigarettes. But, under the new regime, Sprint/Nextel does not give away free cellphones! Oh well... They will occasionally give away free phone cards, at least.) The corporate hospitality tents (if you are lucky enough to be allowed in) are catered by a venerable New Hampshire institution, Hart's Turkey Farm.
This used to be a "one-groove" track where it was difficult to pass, but the racing has been getting better every year as they tweak the surface, the banking, etc. It's a challenging track because the turns are very tight while the straightaways are very long, so it combines the most difficult features of a short track and a superspeedway.
Who Loves Ya?
The same as everywhere else, the most popular driver at Loudon is Dale Earnhardt, Sr.
Dale Jr. is the most popular living driver at Loudon, even though he usually struggles here. He is especially popular with Quebecois fans. Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon have huge followings.
Jimmie swept the Loudon series in 2003, and Jeff has won 3 races here. The "Other Jeff", Jeff Burton is the all-time Cup wins leader with 4 victories, including a bizarre race in 2000 where he led all 300 laps. He has won 5 Loudon races in all counting his Summer 1992 Busch Series win.
Racers with Northern New England roots (e.g., Ricky Craven and Martin Truex) always get a warm reception at Loudon.
The most vigorously reviled villain is Kurt Busch, who swept both Loudon races in his championship year of 2004.
Tony Stewart also used to be widely hated, but since his 2005 championship he has become much more popular. Stewart holds an (apparently) unbeatable Loudon record. He has won races in two different major-league series: he won the summer 2000 and summer 2005 Cup races as well as the summer 1998 Indy Racing League event.
NHIS
Hospitality Tents, etc.
This page does not get a huge number of hits, but a large percentage of those hits are from people Googling phrases like "NHIS+hospitality+tents". I don't know a whole lot about these tents, even though I spend many long hours within sight of them: I am usually at a souvenir stand behind the main grandstand, and the tents are on the other side of a chain link fence. I will say that the main hospitality tent area is in between Route 106 and the track proper. You do, I believe, need a separate pass for the Hospitality area, as well as a ticket for a specific tent. Those items are normally only supposed to be given out along with a race ticket, although people do buy and sell their hospitality passes separately. (Naughty, naughty!) You need a contact with a corporate sponsor to get a hospitality tent pass. Once you get inside the tent there is the usual free food, drink, music, schwag, etc. to be snarfed up.
On a more rarefied level, there is a complex of luxury suites on top of the grandstand. This is one of the places where the drivers and other celebrities hang out when they're not working. It's virtually impossible to get up there unless you are extremely well-connected. It is difficult but not impossible to get a pass for the infield, where you can get a closeup look at the garages.
Some sponsors set up tents for the general public outside the track proper. There's no free food or drink to be had, but some of these tents are worth a visit. I especially recommend the racing museum at the Crown Royal tent. The best freebies used to be the colorful MBNA T-shirts, available if you applied for an MBNA Racing Rewards card. I have about a dozen of them myself. Sadly, MBNA no longer exists. Well, actually, I don't mind that they don't exist: I just miss their schwag.
The best place to see drivers and other celebrities for free is the SpeedTV studio, which is usually set up somewhere on the "Tilcon Road" which leads from Turns 1 and 2 to the main RV parking area. Also, if you arrive early on Sunday morning, there are usually several drivers signing autographs at their souvenir haulers before the main event.
Useful Links
Some Minor but Very Noticeable Changes in 2008:
Next season will see several minor but very noticeable changes.
The "Car of Tomorrow" will be used fulltime in the Cup Series. It isn't particularly futuristic, but it is apparently safer than the old car, so Nascar is sticking with the "COT" even though the drivers dislike it intensely.
There will be several more open-wheel stars in Nascar this year. In fact there will probably be more former Indy 500 champions in the Coca Cola 600 this Memorial Day than in the Indy 500 itself. Many Nascar regulars are worried about this development, since two forms of racing are very different: however Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya (amongst others) managed to make the transition with some degree of success. I suspect Dario Franchitti and the others will do OK.
The Cup series' official name will change from "Nextel" to "Sprint" Cup. No one besides MRN radio reporter Sprint Kelley (formerly Nextel Kelley and Winston Kelley) will notice that change after the season starts. Most people just refer to it as the "Cup Series" anyway. (This is a habit left over from when a tobacco sponsor, Winston, held the naming rights: for many years, the other sponsors— thanks to restrictions on marketing tobacco— rarely if ever attached the word "Winston" to the front of "Cup Series.")
The Busch Series is also going to be renamed: it will be the Nationwide Series. (Nationwide is an insurance company most famous for the catchy "Nationwide is on your side" jingle in its commercials.) This means that two prominent drivers, the brothers Kurt & Kyle Busch will now be known as Kurt & Kyle Nationwide. (This solves the paradox of someone named Busch driving the #2 Miller Lite car.)
The Budweiser Pole award for the fastest qualifiers is now going to be the Coors Light Pole. The pre-season Budweiser Shootout keeps its name this year, but the race's name will change (not necessarily to the Coors Light Shootout) in 2009.
The noticeable change is: Dale Earnhardt Jr. will no longer drive for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. He surprised some people (though not everyone) by joining Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears as members of the Hendrick Motorsports stable. (Kyle Nationwide had to go find another ride, and caught on with Joe Gibbs Racing.)
Dale Jr.'s #8 red and black Budweiser car sported the second-most famous livery in racing (after his fathers black #3 Goodwrench car.) For almost a decade, Junior drove with Budweiser on (though not in) his car.
Dale Jr. & Dale Sr.'s joint souvenir truck; Loudon
2007
Shortly before Junior left DEI, Jeff Gordon scored his 76th and 77th race wins, tying and then surpassing Dale Sr.'s career totals. This placed Gordon sixth on the "all time" (since 1949) list and first on the "modern era" (since 1973) victory list. Both times, Gordon waved an Earnhardt #3 banner out his car window during his victory laps— while some disgruntled Earnhardt fans booed him and even pelted his #24 car with beer cans. (He ended the season with 81 wins and needs only 3 more in 2008 to reach third place.)
Evidently, the negotiations between Dale Jr. and his stepmother were bitter. Even after he decided to leave, the question of whether or not he could at least keep using the #8 on his car remained open for most of the summer. It sounds, judging from Junior's rather diplomatic public statements, that Teresa fought more with her stepchildren over the number than anything else. (I say "stepchildren" in the plural because Dale Jr.'s older sister Kelly Earnhardt Elledge is his business manager.)
August 18, 2007 ESPN.com story: "Dale Jr. says Teresa blocked 8 move"
August 19, 2007 ESPN.com story: "Junior the 82nd driver to get seat time in the No. 8" (Junior is not the greatest driver to use the #8: Joe Weatherly, Wendell Scott, David Pearson, and Dale Sr. also drove #8 cars at some point during their Cup careers.)
Teresa Earnhardt will be fielding a #8 car in 2009: the popular veteran Mark Martin (who became a DEI driver when Ms. Earnhardt bought out Bobby Ginn's racing operation) will drive 23 to 26 races and Aric Almirola will drive the rest. But it will not be the #8 Bud car: on September 18, 2007, Anheuser-Busch announced that they had signed up Kasey Kahne (the cutest driver on the circuit) and his #9 Dodge, owned by Gillett Evernham Motors. (The #8 car will go with Martin's previous sponsor, the US Army.)
Kasey
Kahne with Bud on (but not in) his car
For a long time no one knew which number Junior would be using. Finally, on September 19th, 2007, we found out. Junior will be driving the #88 car, and he will have three different sponsors: the National Guard, Mountain Dew, and AMP Energy Drink (both Pepsi products.) No, he does not have to join the Guard—but he will have to drink the drinks. He may also want to consider being seen drinking another Pepsico energy drink product: Jeff Gordon 24 Energy (a special racing energy drink "uniquely formulated for race fans and energy drinkers.")
The #88 car has a rich history. Most recently, Ricky Rudd ran the #88 for Robert Yates Racing. Its most recent sponsor was a candy bar: Snickers. 50 years ago, Dale Jr.'s grandfather, the late Ralph Earnhardt, drove a #88 car for (racin' is a small world) Petty Enterprises.
The new deal should be a boon to Dale Jr.'s racing career. Hendrick invariably has the strongest (though not necessarily the most durable) equipment on the track by far, whereas DEI's equipment tends to be just OK.
Although what happens on the track is significant, however, souvenir sales are (of course!) the most important thing. This will cause a run on #88 schwag this year as fans stock up on hats, shirts, diecast cars, flags, etc. In the long run, this will mean that the two of the three most popular racing schwag brands — Dale Jr.'s and Dale Sr.'s — will now be marketed by different organizations. But the third most popular brand, Jeff Gordon's, will now be allied with Dale Jr.'s.
In 2007, Toyota began particpating in the Nextel Cup (now Sprint Cup) and the Busch Series (now Nationwide Series.) This was big news, even though Toyota had been involved with Nascar's regional series since 2000, and in the Craftsman Truck Series since 2004.
Toyota's initial spring season at the Cup level went badly, although the summer did start on a high note on Memorial Day weekend with a strong 5th place finish by Brian Vickers in the Coca-Cola 600. Toyota's marquee driver, Michael Waltrip, was in the embarrassing position of having negative points for almost four full months. He made the Daytona 500 and finished 30th, earning 73 points. But he was penalized 100 points before the race. You do the math. He didn't make another race till Week 13: that was on June 4th at Dover.
Halfway through the season, Toyota finally won a Budweiser pole award: Dave Blaney was the fastest qualifier at the summer Loudon race, thus qualifying for the 2008 Bud Shootout. Even though he fell back to 29th in the actual race, this was still a sign of progress. It came at the beginning of July's "Grand Slam" (when the Cup Series visits four of the most hallowed sites in racing: Loudon, Daytona, Joliet, and finally Indianapolis.)
And at the end of the summer, in early September, Joe Gibbs Racing announced that they would switch from Chevy to Toyota next season, bringing Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and Kyle Nationwide underneath the flag of the Rising Sun.
A month later, on Friday, October 5, the Toyotas made a spectacular showing in qualifying at Talledega. Michael Waltrip won the pole (for the first time in his long career) and Dave Blaney won the outside pole. In fact, 8 of the top 10 starters were Toyotas. This was arguably due to a somewhat strange circumstance: the October Talledega race was the first time restrictor plates had been used with the Car of Tomorrow— and it was also a rare "impound race" (where the crews can't work on the car after qualifying.) The Top 35 teams played it safe, while the non-Top 35 teams took the gamble of qualifying in "qualifying trim" rather than "race trim." The 11 fastest qualifiers were all non-Top 35 teams, so the 9th through 11th place cars (including A.J. Allmendinger's #84 Red Bull Camry) missed the race.
In the actual race on October 6th Blaney finished 3rd, less than a car length behind the winner Jeff Gordon (who ironically had a qualifying speed of 0.00mph after blowing off qualifying altogether.) Waltrip was in contention all day until he wrecked with 20 laps to go.
At the end of the 2007 season, only one charter Toyota team, Blaney's #22, ended up in the Top 35. However, the three future Toyota drivers —Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Nationwide— all made the Chase for the Championship.
2008 got off to a great start for Toyota: Michael Waltrip won the outside pole at the Daytona 500. This is the first time since the "Top 35" rule was enacted that a non-Top 35 team won a spot in the front row for the "Great American Race". Tony Stewart and Kyle Nationwide finished 3rd and 4th in the main event (just barely losing out to winner Ryan Newman who took over the lead on the last lap.) Three weeks later, at Atlanta, in a long race on what runner-up Tony Stewart aptly characterized as "e;crap" tires, Kyle finally got Toyota's first Cup win. This was also the first time that Toyota had led the Cup drivers and owners points standings.
For more info:
The Chase for the Championship
I moved my Chase for the Championship info to a different page.
I will mention here that there will be 12 cars in the 2008 Chase and they are re-seeded by wins, not by points— same as last year. But there is a change: the name is the "Sprint for the Cup"
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