New Hampshire Motor Speedway

Vorlage:Infobox Nascar Racetrack New Hampshire International 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.

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.

These races were successful and led to Loudon earning a spot on the 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.

The track also hosted open wheel racing for 7 years, hosting CART from 1992-1995, then the Indy Racing League from 1996-1998.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.[1]

Current Events

Records

NASCAR Nextel Cup Qualifying: Ryan Newman, 28.561 sec. (133.357 mph), 2003
NASCAR Nextel Cup Race: Jeff Burton, 2 hrs. 42 min. 35 sec. (117.134 mph), 1997
NASCAR Busch Series Qualifying: Kevin Harvick, 29.138 sec. (130.716 mph), 2001
NASCAR Busch Series Race: Bobby Hamilton Jr., 1 hr. 55 min. 2 sec. (110.368 mph), 2002
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying: Matt Crafton, 29.567 sec. (128.819 mph), 2005
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race: Jack Sprague, 1 hr. 56 min. 13 sec. (109.244 mph), 2001
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Qualifying: Mike Ewanitsko, N. Babylon, N.Y., 28.693 sec. (132.743 mph), 2001
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Race: Chuck Hossfeld, Ransomville, N.Y., 1 hr. 2 min. 33 sec. (101.487 mph), 2002

Open wheel race history

CART

Season	Winning Driver	Chassis	Engine
1992	Bobby Rahal	Lola	Chevrolet-Ilmor
1993	Nigel Mansell	Lola	Ford-Cosworth
1994	Al Unser Jr.	Penske	Mercedes Benz-Ilmor
1995	André Ribeiro	Reynard	Honda

IRL

Season	Winning Driver	Chassis	Engine
1996-97	Scott Sharp	Lola	Ford-Cosworth
1997	Robbie Buhl	G-Force	Oldsmobile
1998	Tony Stewart	Dallara	Oldsmobile

Localwise history

In 1999 NHIS held Loudon's first annual Halloween costume party and contest, which has a "Haunted House Maze", games, food (which include pizza from Loudon's local pizza parlor, Brookside Pizza), a few "Guessing Games" (started in the fourth annual party in 2002, which you had to estimate how many items are in a jar, and the prize is the jar of items), and of course, the costume contest. It's for Loudon kids taking 5th grade or as low as pre-K, and the prize package includes a trophy, a bike, a bike helmet, and a certificate. There are 14 prize packs each year; two per grade, one for each gender in a grade. However, the trophies noticeably keep getting smaller every year.

During the first three years, the party and contest were held in the outfield garage, and it had a "Haunted Hay Ride". It moved to the infield garage in the fourth year, due to overcrowding. At that point, the hay ride had to be removed. Every year, children and younger teens that leave when the party closes get a dollar coin. From 1999 to 2004, the Halloween party was supposed to be an alternative to trick-or-treating. Then in 2005, the event was held on the Saturday before Halloween so that way they can attract more people, and so kids can trick-or-treat on Halloween without the hassle of special Halloween events happening. The result was a success, as it had the highest attendance in the Halloween party and contest's history.

In 2005 and 2006, NHIS has been trying to hold a free event that will allow kids, teens, and adults to ride their bicycles on the actual track, but on both years they had to cancel the event due to inclement weather (rain).

External links

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