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New Hampshire International Speedway
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New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a oval speedway located in Loudon, New Hampshire which has hosted NASCAR racing annually since the early 1990s, as well as open wheel racing during the 1990s. The track was originally the site of Bryar Motorsports Park before being purchased and redeveloped by Bob Bahre. The track is currently owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports.
History
The track was opened in June 1990, after nine months of construction following the Bahre family's purchase of the Bryar Motorsports Park.
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Encyclopedia
New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a oval speedway located in Loudon, New Hampshire which has hosted NASCAR racing annually since the early 1990s, as well as open wheel racing during the 1990s. The track was originally the site of Bryar Motorsports Park before being purchased and redeveloped by Bob Bahre. The track is currently owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports.
History
The track was opened in June 1990, after nine months of construction following the Bahre family's purchase of the Bryar Motorsports Park. The existing road circuit was redeveloped into a multi-purpose track, with NASCAR added to the popular Loudon Classic motorcycle, WKA go-kart and SCCA races on the complex. It was the largest speedway in New England, and later expansion has made it the largest sports venue of any type in the region. Its construction was extremely unusual for a race track, in that it was designed and constructed without consulting engineers, and using just one surveyor (whose primary job was to plant stakes) to help. NASCAR made its debut at the track in July 1990, with a Busch Series race won by Tommy Ellis. For three years, the Busch Series hosted a pair of races at the track each year.
The Busch races were successful. Loudon gained a spot on the Sprint Cup Series schedule in 1993. Rusty Wallace won the inaugural Slick 50 300 in July of that year. That race was also Davey Allison's final race: the next day, Allison was fatally injured in a helicopter crash.
In 1996, Ernie Irvan captured the win in the July race, making it one of the more emotional victories in NASCAR history. The win came less than two years after Irvan suffered a near-fatal crash at Michigan International Speedway, where he was given less than a 10% chance of survival.
After the 1996 season Bahre and Bruton Smith bought North Wilkesboro Speedway and moved one of its Winston Cup dates to New Hampshire. The second race is held in the middle of September. Since 2004, it has been the first event of the Chase for the Championship.
The track also hosted open wheel racing for seven years, hosting CART from 1992-1995, then the Indy Racing League from 1996-1998. One of the open wheel winners was Tony Stewart who later won two Sprint Cup races at the track as well.
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 exiting the second turn, resulting in a full speed crash head-on in the middle of the third and fourth turns. When the Winston Cup Series made their first appearance of the season, 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 in recent history outside of Daytona and Talladega to use them. It would be the last one as well; an uneventful 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 1970s.
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 November 23 of that year, which was the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was much concern about the weather, but race day turned out to be unseasonably mild. Robby Gordon won that race.
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 seven degrees). The addition of SAFER barriers to the corner walls was made in 2003.
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. In June 2008, the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Club race was ended early by a storm which caused flooding at various locations around the track, including the infield tunnel: however in that case the post-race activities were not interrupted.
Before the 2008 racing season, Speedway Motorsports purchased NHIS and other racing-related assets from the Bahre family for $340 million cash. The name of the speedway changed to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The track will continue to have two Sprint Cup dates for the foreseeable future. One of the assets included in the sale was a 50% interest in North Wilkesboro Speedway. The other 50% was still owned by Bruton Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports.
NHMS representatives made a heavy push to reintroduce open-wheel racing in the form of IndyCar Series to the track in the 2009 season. However, NHMS was not included in the 2009 IndyCar season schedule.
NASCAR statistics
Current NASCAR events
NASCAR records
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Qualifying: Ryan Newman, 28.561 sec. (133.357 mph), 9/12/2003
- NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Race: Jeff Burton, 2 hrs. 42 min. 35 sec. (117.134 mph), 7/13/1997
- NASCAR Nationwide Series Qualifying: Kevin Harvick, 29.138 sec. (130.716 mph), 5/11/2001
- NASCAR Nationwide Series Race: Bobby Hamilton, Jr., 1 hr. 55 min. 2 sec. (110.368 mph), 5/11/2002
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: Mike Skinner, 29.383 sec. (129.626 mph), 9/16/2006
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race: Ron Hornaday, Jr., 1 hr. 55 min. 39 sec. (109.780 mph), 9/15/2007
- NASCAR Camping World East Series Qualifying: Brian Hoar, 29.893 sec. (127.414 mph), 7/18/2002
- NASCAR Camping World East Series Race: Ted Christopher, 1 hr. 13 min. 9 sec. (108.476 mph), 5/12/2001
- NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Qualifying: Mike Ewanitsko, 28.693 sec. (132.743 mph), 7/19/2001
- NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Race: Mike Ewanitsko, 58 min. 15 sec. (108.979 mph), 9/16/2000
- NASCAR Sportsman Division Qualifying: T. W. Taylor, 33.740 sec. (112.887 mph), 9/02/1990
- NASCAR Sportsman Division Race: Dennis Setzer, 1 hr. 33 min. 5 sec. (85.250 mph), 9/02/1990
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series records
(As of 10/27/07)
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners
Open-wheel race winners
External links
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