NHMS fills September void
LOUDON, N.H. — The pressing question facing New Hampshire Motor Speedway since the announcement that the NASCAR Cup Series would be moving the playoff event from the Granite State to Las Vegas in 2018 was how the track would fill the gaping hole in the schedule.
Yesterday, track officials and NASCAR announced a three-race slate, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 21-22, highlighted by a 250lap race (264.5 miles), the longest in the history of the Modified Tour.
“Our intent was to create a Super Bowl of regional touring, this short track extravaganza, and having the Whelen Modified be the headliner of that is just going to be an absolute fantastic weekend,” said NHMS executive vice president and general manager David McGrath.
It will also feature a 125-lap Pro Series race that will combine racers from the Pro Series East with the points leaders from the Mexico and Euro series. The Pinty’s Series will leave Canada for the first time with a 100-lap race.
McGrath said he expects the initial crowd to be in the 15,000-20,000 range and hopes the event can gain a footing and grow from there.
The expectation is that practice and qualifying would be on Friday, racing on Saturday with Sunday available as a rain day.
Each of the series are seen as stepping stones toward the larger Cup Series with Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson and Joey Logano among the group to come up through the Pro Series while Cayden Lapcevich and Alex Labbe emerged from the Pinty’s Series.
Scorn for Elliott penalty
Chase Elliott will be without crew chief Alan Gustafson and car chief Joshua Kirk this weekend as they serve the one-race suspension NASCAR handed down after Elliott’s No. 24 was penalized for an aerodynamic modification for putting a piece of tape on the rear spoiler for last Sunday’s race at Chicagoland.
Gustafson and Kirk are also $25,000 lighter in the wallet while Elliott’s team, Hendrick Motorsports, was docked 15 owner points and Elliott lost 15 driver points, knocking him down from sixth to eighth in the standings.
Elliott won the second stage and finished the race second to Truex, but that is now listed as encumbered.
“What’s an encumbered finish when you’re second, what does that mean?” Ryan Newman asked.
When the moderator answered that Elliott cannot use the benefit of the finish in a tiebreaker, Newman pounced.
“That was a big penalty,” he said sarcastically.
“All I know is they had a great points day. I think they just took a few stage points away for the most part,” said Denny Hamlin, who won the Overton’s 301 here in July. “From my standpoint, it looks like it’s a misdemeanor. NASCAR didn’t deem that a very big penalty so there must not have been any intent there. I guess it was all an accident.”
So clearly, racers feel like Elliott got off pretty light.
Busch wins pole
Kyle Busch won the pole for tomorrow’s race with a top time of 28.203 seconds (135.049 mph) in the final round of qualification. He overcame an early slip in the second round and managed to crack the top 12 to qualify for the third and final round.
It will be his eighth pole this season and fourth time in 26 career starts at Loudon.
“It feels pretty good to capitalize on another good Friday, and we just need to somehow figure out how to turn these things into good Sundays,” Busch said. “Being able to start up front, it would be nice to stay up front all day, limit our mistakes and not have any of those and be able to carry on and go to Victory Lane on Sunday.”
Larson will join Busch in the front row after finishing second. Larson started at the back of the pack in July, never getting in a qualifying run, before working his way up to second.
Newman, who will be starting 18th in tomorrow’s Cup Series race, won the pole for this afternoon’s Modified Tour’s F.W. Webb 100 in a time of 28.952 seconds (131.556 mph).
The trucks will qualify this morning before racing at 1 p.m.