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New Hampshire Motor Speedway

Coordinates: 43°21′44″N 71°27′41″W / 43.36226°N 71.46125°W / 43.36226; -71.46125
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New Hampshire Motor Speedway
"The Magic Mile"
NHMS
Location1122 Route 106 North
Loudon, New Hampshire 03307
Capacity93,521 (Grandstand)
105,491 (Total)
OwnerSpeedway Motorsports, Inc.
OperatorSpeedway Motorsports, Inc.
Broke groundAugust 13, 1989
OpenedJune 5, 1990
Former namesBryar Motorsport Park (1960–1989)
New Hampshire International Speedway (1990–2007)
Major eventsNASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Lenox Industrial Tools 301
Sylvania 300
NASCAR Nationwide Series
New England 200
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
New Hampshire 175
IZOD IndyCar Series IZOD INDY 225
Motorcycles
Loudon Classic
Oval
SurfaceAsphalt & Granite
Length1.058 miles (1.703 km)
BankingTurns – Variable banking at 2/7 degrees (12% grade)
Straightaways – 1 degree banking
Race lap record0:21.466 (Andre Ribeiro, Tasman Motorsports, 1995, CART PPG IndyCar World Series)
Road Course
Length1.6 miles (2.57 km)

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a 1.058-mile (1.703 km) oval speedway located in Loudon, New Hampshire which has hosted NASCAR racing annually since the early 1990s, as well as an IndyCar weekend and the oldest motorcycle race in North America, the Loudon Classic. Nicknamed "The Magic Mile," the speedway is often converted into a 1.6-mile (2.6 km) road course, which includes much of the oval.

The track was originally the site of Bryar Motorsports Park before being purchased and redeveloped by Bob Bahre. The track is currently one of eight major NASCAR tracks owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports.

History

The track opened as New Hampshire International Speedway 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 Winston 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. From 2004 to 2010, it was the site of the first event of the Chase for the Championship. In 2011, however, NHMS will host the second race in the series, following the opening event at Chicagoland Speedway.[citation needed]

The speedway was the first for NASCAR to start the field in two groups under the warm-up laps to help set pit speed.

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 Winston/Nextel 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 wrecked race car brought out a caution flag. At the time, NASCAR's policy was for its drivers to race back to the start-finish line to begin the caution period. This policy allowed drivers who were one or more laps down to pass the leader and get back one lap, but during the 2003 season there were several incidents which involved drivers racing back to the caution nearly causing accidents. Jarrett's car had stalled on the front stretch— in fact, directly in the path of oncoming cars— and he was in danger of being hit by cars that were trying to get laps back. Although Jarrett avoided contact, the incident was enough for NASCAR to act and beginning with the next race, NASCAR outlawed racing back to the caution flag and instead froze the field after a caution, and a "free pass" rule (popularly referred to as "the lucky dog") was put in place 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] In June 2008, the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Cup 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.[2] 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. In 2011, the series returned to the track. However, the race failed to meet attendance expectations and controversial decisions made by race officials at the end of the race caused the race to be left off the 2012 schedule.[citation needed]

NASCAR statistics

Current NASCAR events

NASCAR records

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Records

(As of 9/19/10)

Most Wins 4 Jeff Burton
Most Top 5s 14 Jeff Gordon
Most Top 10s 18 Jeff Gordon
Starts 32 4 Drivers
Poles 4 Ryan Newman
Most Laps Completed 9254 Jeff Gordon
Most Laps Led 1207 Jeff Gordon
Avg. Start* 8.9 Ryan Newman
Avg. Finish* 7.6 Denny Hamlin

* from minimum 10 starts.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winners

Season Date Winning Driver Car # Sponsor Make Team Avg Speed Margin of Victory
1993 July 11 Rusty Wallace 2 Miller Genuine Draft Pontiac Grand Prix Penske Racing 105.947 mph (170.505 km/h) 1.31 sec
1994 July 10 Ricky Rudd 10 Tide Ford Thunderbird Rudd Performance Motorsports 87.599 mph (140.977 km/h) 0.69 sec
1995 July 9 Jeff Gordon 24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 107.029 mph (172.246 km/h) 1.23 sec
1996 July 14 Ernie Irvan 28 Texaco Havoline Ford Thunderbird Robert Yates Racing 98.930 mph (159.212 km/h) 5.47 sec
1997 July 13 Jeff Burton 99 Exide Batteries Ford Thunderbird Roush Racing 117.134 mph (188.509 km/h) 5.372 sec
1997 September 14 Jeff Gordon 24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 100.364 mph (161.520 km/h) 0.209 sec
1998 July 13 Jeff Burton 99 Exide Batteries Ford Taurus Roush Racing 102.996 mph (165.756 km/h) 7.439 sec
1998 August 30 Jeff Gordon 24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 112.078 mph (180.372 km/h) 0.664 sec
1999 July 11 Jeff Burton 99 Exide Batteries Ford Taurus Roush Racing 101.876 mph (163.954 km/h) 1.347 sec
1999 September 19 Joe Nemechek 42 BellSouth Chevrolet Monte Carlo Team SABCO 100.673 mph (162.017 km/h) UC
2000 July 9 Tony Stewart 20 Home Depot Pontiac Grand Prix Joe Gibbs Racing 103.145 mph (165.996 km/h) UC/Rain
2000 September 17 Jeff Burton 99 Exide Batteries Ford Taurus Roush Racing 102.003 mph (164.158 km/h) UC
2001 July 22 Dale Jarrett 88 UPS Ford Taurus Robert Yates Racing 102.131 mph (164.364 km/h) 0.656 sec
2001 November 23 Robby Gordon 31 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo Richard Childress Racing 103.594 mph (166.718 km/h) 2.008 sec
2002 July 21 Ward Burton 22 Caterpillar Dodge Intrepid Bill Davis Racing 92.342 mph (148.610 km/h) 0.656 sec
2002 September 15 Ryan Newman 12 Mobil 1 / Alltel Ford Taurus Penske Racing 105.081 mph (169.111 km/h) UC/Rain
2003 July 20 Jimmie Johnson 48 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 96.924 mph (155.984 km/h) 1.582 sec
2003 September 14 Jimmie Johnson 48 Lowe's Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 133.357 mph (214.617 km/h) 6.240 sec
2004 July 25 Kurt Busch 97 Irwin Industrial Tools Ford Taurus Roush Racing 132.36 mph (213.01 km/h) 0.607 sec
2004 September 19 Kurt Busch 97 Irwin Industrial Tools Ford Taurus Roush Racing 109.753 mph (176.630 km/h) 2.488 sec
2005 July 17 Tony Stewart 20 Home Depot Chevrolet Monte Carlo Joe Gibbs Racing 130.327 mph (209.741 km/h) 0.851 sec
2005 September 18 Ryan Newman 12 Mobil 1/Alltel Dodge Charger Penske Racing 95.891 mph (154.322 km/h) 0.292 sec
2006 July 16 Kyle Busch 5 Kellogg's Chevrolet Monte Carlo Hendrick Motorsports 101.384 mph (163.162 km/h) 0.406 sec
2006 September 17 Kevin Harvick 29 Reese's Chevrolet Monte Carlo Richard Childress Racing 102.195 mph (164.467 km/h) 0.777 sec
2007 July 1 Denny Hamlin 11 FedEx Ground Chevrolet Impala SS Joe Gibbs Racing 108.215 mph (174.155 km/h) 0.068 sec
2007 September 16 Clint Bowyer 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet Impala SS Richard Childress Racing 110.475 mph (177.792 km/h) 6.469 sec
2008 June 29 Kurt Busch 2 Miller Lite Dodge Charger Penske Racing 106.719 mph (171.748 km/h) UC/Called due to rain
2008 September 14 Greg Biffle 16 Dish Network Turbo HD Ford Fusion Roush Fenway Racing 105.468 mph (169.734 km/h) 0.505 sec
2009 June 28 Joey Logano 20 Home Depot Toyota Camry Joe Gibbs Racing 97.497 mph (156.906 km/h) UC/Called due to rain
2009 September 20 Mark Martin 5 Carquest/Kellogg's Chevrolet Impala SS Hendrick Motorsports 100.753 mph (162.146 km/h) UC
2010 June 27 Jimmie Johnson 48 Lowe's Chevrolet Impala Hendrick Motorsports 113.308 mph (182.352 km/h) 0.753 sec
2010 September 19 Clint Bowyer 33 Cheerios / Hamburger Helper Chevrolet Impala Richard Childress Racing 106.769 mph (171.828 km/h) 0.477 sec
2011 July 17 Ryan Newman 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala Stewart-Haas Racing
2011 September 25 Tony Stewart 14 Mobil 1 / Office Depot Chevrolet Impala Stewart-Haas Racing

[3]

Open-wheel race winners

New Hampshire Indy 225

Other racing series

Bryar Motorsports Park was one of the first venues to host a Trans-Am Series race.[citation needed]

The speedway hosted a round of the 2012 Global RallyCross Championship

References

  1. ^ Sunday Races At NHIS Flooded Out May 4th 2006
  2. ^ Speedway Motorsports Purchases New Hampshire International Speedway November 2nd, 2007
  3. ^ Race Results at New Hampshire Motor Speedway – Racing-Reference.info

43°21′44″N 71°27′41″W / 43.36226°N 71.46125°W / 43.36226; -71.46125

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