Speedway going full throttle for 2018 season

LOUDON — David McGrath, general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway, says that he and the staff at New England’s largest professional sports venue aren’t looking in the rear view mirror as the 2018 event season opens.

“We’re very focused on the events we’ll be hosting this year and maintaining the close relationships we have with our fans and the town of Loudon. We know how to host major events and make them enjoyable experiences. We’re a world class track and we’re engaged and hitting on all cylinders,” said McGrath.

He says NHMS moved quickly to fill in the hole left in its schedule by the loss of its September NASCAR race to its sister track in Las Vegas. This fall will mark the first time in 20 years that the track will have only one top-tier NASCAR race.

McGrath said the speedway looked for something that would produce the kind of exciting racing New England fans have come to expect and thinks that the Full Throttle weekend set for Sept. 21-22 fills the bill.

The three-race weekend will feature a 250-lap NASCAR Whelen Modified race, the longest in the tour's history.

The Whelen Modified Tour has raced more events at New Hampshire Motor Speedway than any other NASCAR series, and for good reason.

McGrath said the mile oval sets up the modifieds to put on one of the most exciting races in America each time they visit.  The leaders will race nose-to-tail with regular lead changes. In fact, there's often one that will occur on the final lap of the race to change the outcome by the time the checkered flag drops.

September’s race weekend will also feature a global cast of drivers from the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, PEAK Mexico and Whelen Euro series, and for the first time ever, the NASCAR Pinty's Series, which has never previously held a race outside of Canada.

“It’s a great event and we’re looking to grow it into a major attraction,” said McGrath, who notes that big races that fill the Speedway’s 92,000-seat venue produce an economic impact on the order of $190 million for the state of New Hampshire.

Plans for a one-time three-day country music festival at the speedway are on hold pending the outcome of a case in New Hampshire Superior Court in Concord. The festival received unanimous approval from the Loudon Planning Board last fall but the decision has been contested by a group of nearby residents who maintain that it violates an agreement they negotiated with former speedway owner Bob Bahre prior to opening of the speedway.

Monster Energy Series

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series will make its only appearance in New England from July 20-22 and Friday’s Pole Day will set the table for a weekend full of racing.

The day's schedule will be packed with practice sessions across the four series competing during the weekend with the feature event being a late-afternoon qualifying for Sunday's New Hampshire 301. As has been the case in recent years, the qualifying will again run as a three-stage, elimination format as the best drivers in the world compete for the Coors Light Pole Award.

Saturday’s tripleheader will open with the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour’s Eastern Propane & Oil 100.  The open wheel racing has always been a fan favorite at NHMS.

The Lakes Region 200 NASCAR XFINITY Series race will run as the feature event of the tripleheader of Saturday. The race features a mix of NASCAR's next wave of stars, along with cameo appearances from some of the top drivers in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. That cast often includes former Cup Series Champion, Kyle Busch, who has won the race in each of the past two years.

United Site Services will return for the fourth consecutive year to sponsor the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race as the finale of the tripleheader. The race features some of the youngest, future stars in NASCAR that often are making their first appearance in front of New England race fans at NHMS.  Past race winners include Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Larson and William Byron.

Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series should see a full house on hand when the green flag drops at 2 p.m.  The race falls at a crucial time in the schedule as drivers make a push to clinch a playoff spot with a win. In the 2017 edition of this race, Denny Hamlin picked up his first win of the season, en route to qualifying for the NASCAR playoffs.

Motorcycle Racing

McGrath said the 95th Loudon Classic on June 15-17, the longest running motorcycle event in North America, will again return to NHMS.  The competition will feature riders from the Loudon Road Racing Series, American Sport Bike Racing Association and Sidecar Racers Association. The local Granite State Legends Cars will also run two races in the Moat Mountain Road Course Series.

Motorcycle Week at NHMS, June 9-17, is much more than just racing. It includes arrive and ride opportunities from several motorcycle manufacturers and retail displays from the biggest names in the industry.

The U.S. Classic Racing Association will help kick off Motorcycle Week at NHMS with two days of vintage motorcycle racing on June 9-10.

“We’re very proud to host the Loudon Classic, which is part of the heritage of this track dating back to the 1960s when it was Bryar Motorsport Park,” says McGrath, who is himself a motorcycle rider and enjoys taking part in Bike Week festivities.

The Loudon Road Race Series features seven weekends of Championship Cup Series motorcycle racing. The season spans April through October, and events run on the 1.6-mile road course.

Other Race Series

The speedway is a busy place from April through October. It features monthly race weekends with the U.S. Legend Cars International legends and bandelero divisions. Amateur series events include the Sports Car Club of America, U.S. Classic Racing Association, and the World Karting Association. Racing schools are conducted throughout the year by the Richard Petty Driving Experience, Rusty Wallace Driving Experience, NASCAR Racing Experience, and Penguin School (motorcycles), among others.

Legends car racing is one of the fastest growing and most affordable types of American motorsports. Powered by a motorcycle engine, a Legends Car is a purpose-built race car designed to resemble the legendary American automobiles of the 1930s and '40s. Drivers range in age from 12 to 65 plus years old.

NHMS operates two series at the speedway as a part of U.S. Legend Cars International. The cars race the Moat Mountain Road Course Series on the 1.6-mile road course and the Sign Works Oval Series on the 0.25-mile mini-oval.

The Moat Mountain series features monthly doubleheaders that coincide with the Loudon Road Race Series weekends. The road course challenges drivers with difficult elevation changes and tight switchback turns that go both left and right.

The series pull drivers from across New England. In 2015, NHMS hosted the Road Course World Finals, and is expected to be on the list again in the future for the U.S. Legend Cars International event.

There is a Granite State Legends Cars dealership at the speedway. The store is located in the S1 parking lot on property. It sells everything needed to begin a racing career in either legends or bandeleros, including ready-to-race cars.

The bandelero series allows young race car drivers to bridge the gap between go karts and legends cars.  A bandelero car requires a lot more technique and maneuvering than a go kart, but lacks the power of a legend car, which creates a great learning opportunity for drivers in the series as they develop their skills.  Participants may be as young as eight years old.

The bandeleros race on the 0.25-mile mini oval which is located between turns 1 and 2 on the NHMS oval.

Motor Sports Museum

As it approaches its first anniversary, the North East Motor Sports Museum, the region's newest tourist attraction, can already call itself an award-winning museum.

It opened last June and caught the eye of business leaders as the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce recently awarded the museum a Golden Hammer Award.

Created by racers, fans and enthusiasts, the museum is located on Route 106 on speedway property south of the travk and is housed in a 10,000-square-foot building.

All forms of motor sports are represented in the museum, including cars and motorcycles, drag-racing, road courses, hill climbs, soap box derby cars, and even a snowmobile on display.  Racers, fans, and their families have donated countless hours of labor, skills, materials, artifacts, and, most importantly, history and personal stories that date back to 1915.

"We are thrilled by the success of the inaugural year of the museum; it has exceeded our expectations and created a destination site for visitors to the capitol region of New Hampshire," says McGrath.  "We have room to grow and more items than we ever dreamed we could collect to display for race fans and visitors."

Gil Coraine, operations director of the museum, has already announced an expansion plan with more space and new exhibits for 2018, and a second phase of construction to begin in the near future.

"I was one of those kids in high school with a car book inside his history book. Friends of mine had been talking about some sort of museum, hall of fame, whatever, for drag racing specifically, probably for 25 years, but there was just never enough of the right people, right influence to make it happen." said Colraine. "When Dick Berggren retired from Fox Sports, he decided he was going to spearhead this thing, and with his notoriety and contacts, he made it happen. You'll see a list of names on the wall of people who made major contributions of time, money, parts, services, and without them, it would still probably happen, but we wouldn't be sitting in it right now."

The museum's leadership intends to rotate through its significant inventory of memorabilia every year to guarantee a fresh visit for its guests.