Grand National North-South At NHIS – A Tale Of Two Tires
New Hampshire International Speedway’s new wide-apron corners got their first
racing in mid-May with two events – the New Hampshire 200 for Grand National,
and the New Hampshire 125 for GN North. All the scuttlebutt had been fairly
positive, though usually with the old "the track needs more banking"
caveat.
The actual wider aprons don’t look terribly different from the track’s
previous configuration, and a trend that was noticeable in 2001 continued in
2002. The new aprons were meant to allow a wider bottom groove and thus allow
more side by side racing, but the cars never really came close to the yellow
line, usually riding two grooves above it in One and Two. This was something noticeable
in last year’s events and it seemed somewhat greater this time around.
Not that the NH 200 wasn’t suspenseful. The first big shock came on Lap Five
when Jeff Burton broke. His teammate Greg Biffle was listed as "in another
world" as far as speed went, and when Bobby Hamilton Jr. found himself
hopelessly pinned behind Scott Wimmer, Kenny Wallace, and several other lapped
cars, Biffle grabbed the lead. It lasted only two laps; "We had way too
much gear in the car," he lamented after he blew up.
For most of the first two-thirds of the race Bobby Hamilton Jr. was in
charge, and obviously on a mission after the fuel-pickup loss at Richmond. It
appeared with 70 laps to go, though, that the race was snatched from him again.
Pit strategy put Scott Riggs out front on a two-tire gamble that blew up on the
ensuing restart. For Hamilton Jr., though, a needed extra stop under yellow –
this second stop came for two reasons; for a track bar change, and also because
one lug nut fell off on the previous stop – dropped him to last in the serial
order.
From there, though, the Marines were storming Tarawa, Kwajalein, and
Eniwetok, with Saipan, Tinian, Guam, and Pelelieu tossed in for the hell of it.
Crew chief Fred Wanke warned Bobby Jr. to be calm, but Hamilton must have seen
John Wayne’s famous "My name’s Stryker, you’re gonna be my squad"
speech, for he acted like Sgt. Stryker and mowed through the field, even getting
a serious dent in his right front fender. It didn’t slow him down any and he
caught Todd Bodine and Shane Hmeil with fourteen to go and wound up atop Mount
Suribachi.
The kiddie Corps had a good day with Bobby Jr’s win and Shane Hmeil’s fourth.
Veteran Todd Bodine had tried several times to get under Shane but didn’t get
the spot until Hamilton was already gone. Another veteran, Mike McLaughlin, had
a good day and a top five, in keeping with the good luck he tends to find at the
Magic Mile from his Mod Tour and GN North days.
Also having a good day was Jack Sprague (3rd), who until last year had always
had problems at NHIS in his starts there in the Craftsman Trucks – he crashed
out of the lead in 1996, lost the race with 15 to go to Jay Sauter, struggled in
1998 (but salvaged a top-ten), spun in 1999, and crashed in 2000. He led almost
wire-to-wire in 2001, so a luck-change obviously carried over to GN.
Randy LaJoie got damage in the early crash and finished sixth, upset with his
pit crew – "Damn, pit stops killed us all day…we have to figure out how
to get in and out of the pits better….we had a second-place car and we
finished sixth."
Three drivers did double duty – Martin Truex, Mike Johnson, and Andy
Santarre; Truex was the highest-profile of the three as he was tabbed to drive
James Finch’s Chevrolet while regular driver Jimmy Spencer was busy testing
NASCAR’s bigger greenhouse car at Kansas. Truex, though, only finished 29th,
while Johnson was 37th and Santarre 38th.
Having a reasonably good day was Kerry Earnhardt, who has crashed more than a
few times this year and spun in qualifying at Loudon. Earnhardt managed to keep
it off the walls and finish 18th.
Having a day one acquires ulcers from was Jason Keller, knocked out in a
crash with Stacy Compton on the first restart and seeing his point lead shot to
pieces as a result; Keller’s dismal day (32nd at the end despite endless visits
to the garage and back to the track) put winless Jack Sprague back in the point
lead.
But the real treat during the day was the GN North 125.
It was here that we saw a tale of two tires. Goodyear is now the supplier of
tires to Grand National North, this coming after years with McCreary as
supplier. In NASCAR’s big leagues such as Grand National, Goodyear supplies
radial tires, but in GN North the teams still use bias-plies.
The differences between radials and bias-plies have often been on display
when NASCAR’s big leagues run NHIS weekends, but rarely do we see such a
dramatic difference as in the GN North 125 that followed the 200-lapper.
Paul Wolfe took the lead on the start but Kelly Moore took it back after a
few laps; following an early yellow Moore was soon being challenged by Martin
Truex. For several laps Truex kept digging underneath Moore but could not get
fully alongside, and Brad Leighton made a nifty move through traffic entering
Three into third, then dove under Truex in One. There was contact and Truex
backed into the wall in Two. Even after the race Truex’s crew was upset, blaming
Moore for hogging the line with a slower car and thus stacking up the field.
Leighton dominated the first half of the race, but after a halfway yellow
Tracy Gordon and six others stayed out, having pitted under the yellow for
Truex’s crash. Andy Santarre, after starting 26th, clawed into the lead and
Leighton caught up and stayed with him until another yellow set up a 20-lap
shootout to end all such shootouts. Leighton shot past on the restart but
Santarre fought back and the two fought it out for four straight laps door to
door, diving underneath back and forth, with Gordon, Moore, Dale Shaw, and Dale
Quarterly two-by-two right behind them.
Greg Schaefer’s spin set up a four-lap shootout, but that was delayed on the
restart; Tracy Gordon made a move on Kelly Moore but Dale Quarterly made a move
on Gordon, all of them down to the outer pit wall; Quarterly clipped Tracy
Gordon, who spun up the track and backed hard into the first turn wall – so
hard, in fact, he climbed the wall, almost tore into the fence, and landed on
four wheels. "Everybody is vying for spots," said Quarterly afterward.
"Doors were closing up faster than you can get out, just causing
havoc."
This set up a green-white-checker finish. Leighton gunned underneath Santarre
on the restart and cleared him in Four; Kelly Moore squeezed into second at the
stripe, but Santarre blew him off – "I was putting my foot through the
firewall, Santarre said – and down the backstretch erased a half-second gap,
dove underneath in Four; the two drag-raced to the stripe and Leighton won by a
fender.
"It was great racing," Santarre said. "Brad did a great
job…..I knew (he) was going to try and duck inside on me. That’s what the new
apron is for….he roughed me up a little, but hey, I’d have done the same
thing….I was six inches away from winning the race."
While the new apron ultimately did so some good, the real difference remained
the tires. The bias-ply-shod GN North cars were able to race through the
corners; the radial-shod GN and Winston Cup cars have almost never been able to
do so.
In the wake of Ricky Rudd’s rant about NASCAR’s marketing aim toward the MTV
generation, there have been several pieces lamenting such a move. There is a
general consensus on why the MTV generation ought to be ignored in NASCAR
marketing – they haven’t got a clue.
Seemingly all the "MTV" fans go for Jeff Gordon or Dale Earnhardt
Jr. but have almost zero idea why they support them – at least in Junior’s case
it is an inevitable spill-over effect from Senior. Tony Stewart fans, in
contrast, tend to be older, more interested in the sport’s history, and know
what they’re talking about.
I’ve yet to find an "MTV" generation fan with any real clue about
racing. If anything, the young fans with any knowledge of the sport tend to be
younger than the MTV generation. One of them, Charles Lewandowski, is all of
seventeen years old, has worked for the last couple of years as a pit reporter
for Stafford Motor Speedway’s PA race cast team, and this year has joined the
track’s Late Model ranks in a car owned by Buckshot Jones. He had a pretty good
run in Stafford’s Late Model 100 before the NHIS doubleheader, but the race
belonged to another rookie, Craig Collins, and veterans John Yale Jr. and Marc
Atkinson. Collins started on the pole and refused to give up the lead – even
sending Cliff Stakey into the backstretch grass and racing door to door for the
lead for over five straight laps. Yale ultimately took over and led 82 laps,
sweating out a late restart for the win.
Brittany and company haven’t a clue, but guys like Charles Lewandowski are
what the sport should have.