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New Hampshire Motor Speedway
New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a oval speedway located in Loudon, New Hampshire which has hosted NASCAR racing annually since the early 1990s, as well as open wheel racing during the 1990s. The track was originally the site of Bryar Motorsports Park before being purchased and redeveloped by Bob Bahre. The track is currently owned and operated by Speedway Motorsports, Inc.
HistoryThe track was opened 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 and led to Loudon earning a spot on the Sprint 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, as on the next day (July 12) he was involved in the helicopter crash that eventually led to his death on July 13. A second 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 Sprint Cup "playoff" series. 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 Sprint 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 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] On November 2, 2007, a change in ownership was announced. Bruton Smith, owner of Speedway Motorsports, Inc., announced their purchase of NHIS for $340 million cash. The name of the speedway changed to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Both of its Sprint Cup dates will remain for the 2008 season.[2] NHMS representatives made a heavy push to reintroduce open-wheel racing in the form of IndyCar Series to the track in the 2009 season. When the 2009 IndyCar season schedule was announced, track representatives were surprised and dissappointed not to see NHMS included.[3] NASCAR statisticsCurrent NASCAR events
NASCAR records
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series records(As of 10/27/07)
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race winnersOpen-wheel statisticsOpen-wheel race winners
ReferencesExternal links
de:New Hampshire Motor Speedway fr:New Hampshire International Speedway no:New Hampshire International Speedway pt:New Hampshire International Speedway Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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