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New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Fantasy Racing Tip:
When looking at how well a driver does at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, also consider their performance at Martinsville, Phoenix & Richmond because they are very flat tracks.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway
New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a 1.058 mile oval track which has hosted NASCAR racing since the 1990s.
It is commonly referred to by its location, Loudon.
Largest Speedway In New England
The track was opened in June 1990, after 9 months of construction after the Bahre family purchased the Bryar Motorsports Park in the region and redeveloped the popular motorcycle circuit into a multi-purpose track, with NASCAR added to the popular motorcycle and SCCA races on the complex.
It was the largest speedway in New England, and later expansion has made this the largest sports venue of any type in the region. NASCAR made its debut at the track in July 1990, with a Busch Series race won by Tommy Ellis. For 3 years, the Busch Series hosted a pair of races at the track each year.
Loudon Gets NASCAR Cup Races
These races were successful and led to Loudon earning a spot on the NASACR Winston Cup schedule in 1993. Rusty Wallace won the inaugural Slick 50 300 in July of that year.
A second 300 mile race was added to the schedule in 1997, taking one of the spots that North Wilkesboro once had on the schedule after that track was sold in an estate sale. The race is held in the middle of September, and in 2004, Loudon became the first race in NASCAR's Chase for the Cup "playoff" series.
Other New Hampshire International Speedway Events
The track also hosted open wheel racing for 7 years, hosting CART from 1992-1995, then the Indy Racing League from 1996-1998.
Adam Petty & Kenny Irwin Tragedy
In 2000, the track was the site of a pair of fatal accidents which took the lives of promising young drivers. In May, while practicing for a Busch Series race, Adam Petty perished when his throttle stuck in the middle of a turn.
When Winston Cup made their first appearance, a similar fate befell 1998 Rookie of the Year Kenny Irwin, Jr. For safety reasons, track owners decided to run restrictor plates on the cars during their return trip to the speedway in September 2000, making it the first track outside of Daytona and Talladega to use them.
Restictor Plates At Loudon?
It would be the last one as well; a boring race won by Jeff Burton, which had no lead changes, was the result of the experiment. It was the first wire-to-wire race since the 1970's.
September 11th
The 2001 New Hampshire 300 was originally scheduled for September 16, the Sunday after the September 11 terrorist attacks. NASCAR initially announced that the race would be held as scheduled, but the event was postponed until the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was much concern about the weather, but race day turned out to be unseasonably mild.
A More Competitive & Safer Race
Two changes were made. In 2002, in an effort to increase competitive racing, the track's corners were turned into a progressive banking system, as the apron was paved and became part of the track, and the track's banking was varied from 4 degrees in the lower two lanes to 12% grade (about 7 degrees). The addition of SAFER barriers to the corner walls was made in 2003.
The Lucky Dog Is Born
During the September 2003 Sylvania 300, an incident occurred at this track involving Dale Jarrett where his car was stuck in the middle of the race track and was in danger of getting hit while other cars raced back to the caution flag.
As a result, NASCAR banned racing back to the caution flag, resulting in a "free pass" (popularly referred to as "the lucky dog") in which the first car behind the leader not on the lead lap would get their lap back during each caution period in all of NASCAR's national and regional series.
In mid-May 2006, Loudon was one of many New England communities which experienced damaging floods after a week of near-record rainfall. Several roads and bridges were washed out near the speedway. The infield was flooded, as was the track itself (while a road racing event was going on.) The facility also experienced flooding in October 2005.
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