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A Much Different Race At New Hampshire This Time Around

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by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

June 28, 2009 7:59 pm CDT 2 Comments

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It’s difficult to knock your home racetrack for usually putting on a boring show, but I frequently find myself complaining about the New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Sprint Cup’s answer to the Milwaukee Mile, the 1-mile flat track has put on plenty of snoozefests or rain-shortened tilts over the past few years. As a fan who attends both Sprint Cup races at the track every year, and having been a ticket holder at the track for more than ten years, I often find myself wondering on the drive home whether or not the race I just saw was worth the price of admission.

Today’s event, however, might have finally sold me on Loudon.

Remember that when I wrote about “fixing” NASCAR, I wanted a shorter schedule for the Sprint Cup boys, and that NHMS was one of the first tracks I wanted to go. Despite the fact that it almost always sells out (owing to its status as the only Cup track in New England), there’s always been a negative aura over the track ever since Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin Jr.’s accidents. Remember the 2001 race run on Thanksgiving weekend? Do you have any idea how frigid that was?

Today’s race, though - there was something different about it, compared to the past few years. It didn’t feel like a chore to sit through this race the way it has in some years past. For one, with the starting lineup set by owners’ points, it was fun to watch the guys who were fast in happy hour work their way through the field. In particular, Martin Truex Jr. was showing his stuff early on, working his way into the top 10.

Even the commercialism seemed to be toned down this weekend. The $ouvenir price$ were $till the $ame (if you were enough of a $ucker to $pend $25 on a t-$hirt), but there were far fewer trailers on track grounds selling new gear. Aside from the Aaron’s Lucky Dog and ServiceMaster Cautions, there weren’t too many ads on the three big screens placed around the track.

That made it a lot easier to focus on the racing at hand - and boy, were there some highlights. I’m a little peeved at Kyle Busch for taking out Truex, my One and Done pick this weekend, and causing one of the biggest wrecks at the track in recent memory. The double-file restarts (I refuse to call them that cheesy name that Brian France gave them) completely changed the race, and produced some pretty good battles between Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch.

And how about Joey Logano winning his first career Sprint Cup race? In a way, this is Sliced Bread’s home track - although he relocated to Georgia to further his career around the turn of the decade, he’s originally from Connecticut. Same goes for crew chief Greg Zipadelli, a Berlin, CT native. It’s always a great feeling to get your first win, and it’s great, too, to win at your home track. Combining both must be a dream come true for the No. 20 team.

Sure, the win’s a little controversial due to the race ending early, but either way, it etches Logano into the record books as the youngest Sprint Cup winner ever. And even as driver development contracts are starting earlier and earlier in drivers’ lives and careers, it’s unlikely that anyone is going to win another Sprint Cup race at 19 years old anytime soon.

Today’s Lenox Industrial Tools 301, although rain-shortened (do you think they’ll ever go “the extra mile”?), was the best Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in a long time. More than ever, I can say that I’m looking forward to the start of the Chase ten weeks from now. Hopefully that race will deliver as much entertainment as this one did.

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Comments

2 Responses to “A Much Different Race At New Hampshire This Time Around”

  1. User Avatar Charlie Turner on June 29th, 2009 10:48 am

    Chris, you got to see a really good race this time. Too bad it ended early. I wasn’t too bothered by that myself though. See, back in February, Steve predicted that Joey Logano would be out of the no. 20 berfore the second Daytona race. After telling him he was nuts, I said it was more likely that joey would win a race before the July race. Thank you rain gods.

    Nice race report.

  2. User Avatar Steve Wronkowicz on June 29th, 2009 8:54 pm

    Double file restarts only came about because the fans demanded them after the all-star race–and than the NASCAR gods they did. They helped make the race at NH one of the best in recent history at that track.

    Sorry about your One and Done pick Chris, but it was another talking point.

    And as far as Joey goes–even a blind nut finds a squirrel one in a while.

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