NASCAR travels to New Hampshire for a two-race weekend. The big race is Sunday's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It's the first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship, twelve drivers vying for the championship separated by just forty points.
I'm not a big fan of the Chase. I like the old system where a driver had to be consistent over the entire season to win the championship. Now, a driver just has to be consistent enough over the regular season, the first 26 races, to be in the Top 12 and make the Chase. The Chase is a playoff format; the points of the 12 Chase drivers are reset and they begin the playoffs on an almost equal footing. The winner of the Sprint Cup champion is the best of the 12 over the final ten races of the season. Big leads are almost always erased. Last season, Jimmie Johnson took home the championship that should have belonged to Jeff Gordon. Now, I'm not a Jeff Gordon fan so that's not necessarily a bad thing, but I am a Tony Stewart fan and this year eleven other drivers are vying to take home his championship. He had a 197-point lead after Richmond, but starts this Chase ten points behind Mark Martin. NASCAR got tired of drivers running away with championships, clinching them with races left on the schedule, and came up with this playoff format.
I also don't like the scoring system for the Chase. It's the same as any other time of the season, but twelve drivers are competing for the championship alongside 31 other drivers who have their own reasons for being there. Shouldn't the Chase drivers be scored separately from the other drivers?
Showing posts with label New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Show all posts
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, June 27, 2008
NASCAR Basics: The Tracks: Loudon
Bob and Gary Bahre purchased Bryar Motorsports Park, reconfigured the road course track and added a 1.058 mile oval, and opened New Hampshire International Speedway in 1990. It's located near Loudon, New Hampshire, about an hour's drive from Boston.
NASCAR made its debut at the track, a Busch Series race won by Tommy Ellis, in July 1990. For the next three years, NHIS hosted two Busch Series races per year. They were successful and the track was added to the Cup schedule in 1993. The inaugural Slick 50 300 was won by Rusty Wallace.
In 1997, NHIS added a second Cup race. Bob Bahre and Bruton Smith bought North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina and moved its two Cup races out of the aging facility -- one to New Hampshire and the other to Texas Motor Speedway. In 2007, the Bahres sold NHIS to Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. and the name was changed to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
In 2000, a pair of accidents claimed the lives of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr., two promising young drivers. Both involved stuck accelerator pedals and head-on crashes into the wall. Petty's accident occurred during practice for a Busch Series race, Irwin's during the first Cup race at the track that year. The track owners decided to use restrictor plates when the Cup Series returned in September. The race, which had no lead changes and was won by Jeff Burton, was so boring that the experiment was quickly dropped.
In 2002, to create more competitive racing at the track, progressive banking (four degrees in the bottom lanes to seven degrees at the top) was added to the turns. The following year, SAFER barriers were installed around the track.
One incident at the track changed NASCAR rules. In the September 2003 Sylvania 300 Dale Jarrett wrecked and was stuck in the middle of the track. He was in danger of being hit as cars raced back to the caution flag. NASCAR quickly changed the rules, banning racing back to the line and instituting the "Lucky Dog."
The track at Loudon has been described as "Martinsville on steroids." NHMS is a little over a mile compared to the half-mile at Martinsville, but the idea is the same -- drag race down the straightaway, fight through the almost flat turns, then drag race down the other straightaway. Most of the action usually takes place in the corners, especially as cars exit side-by-side and head down the 1500 feet straightaways.
Juan Montoya holds the qualifying record at Loudon -- 133.431 mph set in September 2009. Jeff Gordon is the top money winner at the track with over $3 million in earnings. He has fifteen Top 10s, twelve Top 5s and three wins in 26 starts. Denny Hamlin has the best average finish -- 6.5 in four starts -- while Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have average finishes just over 10.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosts several regional racing series, including the NASCAR Camping World Series East and the NASCAR Whelan Modified Tour, amateur series events sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America, Loudon RoadRace Series, Vintage Racer Group, U.S. Classic Racing Association and the World Karting Association. NHMS also hosts the only Craftsman Truck Series, Nationwide Series, and Sprint Cup Series races held in the New England area. The Lenox Industrial Tools 300 is held at the end of June or the beginning of July and the Sylvania 300, the first race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, is held in September. Sprint Cup races are 300 laps or 317.4 miles.
(diagram from NASCAR.com)
NASCAR Basics: The Tracks Master List
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NASCAR made its debut at the track, a Busch Series race won by Tommy Ellis, in July 1990. For the next three years, NHIS hosted two Busch Series races per year. They were successful and the track was added to the Cup schedule in 1993. The inaugural Slick 50 300 was won by Rusty Wallace.
In 1997, NHIS added a second Cup race. Bob Bahre and Bruton Smith bought North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina and moved its two Cup races out of the aging facility -- one to New Hampshire and the other to Texas Motor Speedway. In 2007, the Bahres sold NHIS to Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. and the name was changed to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
In 2000, a pair of accidents claimed the lives of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr., two promising young drivers. Both involved stuck accelerator pedals and head-on crashes into the wall. Petty's accident occurred during practice for a Busch Series race, Irwin's during the first Cup race at the track that year. The track owners decided to use restrictor plates when the Cup Series returned in September. The race, which had no lead changes and was won by Jeff Burton, was so boring that the experiment was quickly dropped.
In 2002, to create more competitive racing at the track, progressive banking (four degrees in the bottom lanes to seven degrees at the top) was added to the turns. The following year, SAFER barriers were installed around the track.
One incident at the track changed NASCAR rules. In the September 2003 Sylvania 300 Dale Jarrett wrecked and was stuck in the middle of the track. He was in danger of being hit as cars raced back to the caution flag. NASCAR quickly changed the rules, banning racing back to the line and instituting the "Lucky Dog."
The track at Loudon has been described as "Martinsville on steroids." NHMS is a little over a mile compared to the half-mile at Martinsville, but the idea is the same -- drag race down the straightaway, fight through the almost flat turns, then drag race down the other straightaway. Most of the action usually takes place in the corners, especially as cars exit side-by-side and head down the 1500 feet straightaways.
Juan Montoya holds the qualifying record at Loudon -- 133.431 mph set in September 2009. Jeff Gordon is the top money winner at the track with over $3 million in earnings. He has fifteen Top 10s, twelve Top 5s and three wins in 26 starts. Denny Hamlin has the best average finish -- 6.5 in four starts -- while Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin have average finishes just over 10.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosts several regional racing series, including the NASCAR Camping World Series East and the NASCAR Whelan Modified Tour, amateur series events sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America, Loudon RoadRace Series, Vintage Racer Group, U.S. Classic Racing Association and the World Karting Association. NHMS also hosts the only Craftsman Truck Series, Nationwide Series, and Sprint Cup Series races held in the New England area. The Lenox Industrial Tools 300 is held at the end of June or the beginning of July and the Sylvania 300, the first race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, is held in September. Sprint Cup races are 300 laps or 317.4 miles.
(diagram from NASCAR.com)
NASCAR Basics: The Tracks Master List
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