Adventures In A Granite State Of Racing
Three races, two wild endings, and another win for one division’s newest
dominator. And that was Saturday – Sunday saw multiple cautions, frustration
galore, some surprisingly good racing, and a forgotten star’s comeback.
Saturday at New Hampshire International Speedway was even more chaotic than
normal. Two scheduled races became three with an ill-timed rainout from Friday.
Winston Cup and Craftsman Truck qualifying and Grand National North practices
got in on an overcast day, but with the weather radar showing rain on the way,
NASCAR hurriedly raced the rain for the Modified 100 – and lost the race after
thirteen laps. On the opening green flag five cars slammed together outside the
top twelve rows, and then a very short green flag burst saw Todd Szegedy burst
to a one-second lead before Chuck Hossfeld blew his right front in unusually
spectacular fashion, and then the rain got going, forcing an 8:05 AM restart
Saturday.
It was worth it for Jan Leaty, and the way he won it was heart-stopping –
Todd Szegedy got a run on the final lap, Leaty blocked him off, and the two
slammed together and almost took the top five with them. Leaty and Szegedy both
made miraculous saves and finished one-two.
Eddie Flemke finished sixth and was mixed afterward. "It was easy to
pass out there, we had a pretty good car, the track and tires were good. The
problem was with a couple of drivers….we don’t need that kind of driving out
there. Other than that it was a great race."
John Blewitt lead the most laps but "at the end the whole field ganged
up on us and went by….that (last-lap deal) was pretty close for us. I went to
the outside and Szegedy came into the side of me sideways. We held on for
fourth."
Jerry Marquis finished fifth and said "it was almost impossible for me
to pass today. We needed a couple of cars in front of us to do any kind of
moves. Someone really had to screw up bad for us to really make up and
positions." He also indicated a need for his team to work on the car’s
aerodynamics come September.
As for the last lap, "We were close enough (to the Leaty-Szegedy deal),
but they’re good racecar drivers, and that’s what Loudon is all about, with the
great finishes that we have here and the great racing we put on for the
fans."
Nevin George, third at the end, had a strong race all day – "We came
into the pit and adjusted a little bit…I think we really had the car to beat,
but we just ran out of laps."
Mike Stefanik finished eighth after breaking a rocker arm at the start.
"To finish eighth on seven cylinders," he said, "that’s pretty
awesome."
Several drivers said that as the day wore on the wider the groove got, so
come September the groove on a cooler track should become a little more racy.
But the story of the Mod Tour event was Jan Leaty, badly injured in August
1998, and now in victory lane for the first time since then and for the second
time ever at Loudon.
Leaty was also rather prescient, predicting during Winston Cup qualifying
that passing would be difficult. "We knew it would be hard to pass,"
he said in victory lane, "so we went to the track-position game…..I knew
it was going to be hectic. (Szegedy) made a run, I blocked it, and when we
unhooked it got a little hairy for a second, but it worked out okay. I got
pretty wiggly, and at those speeds, that’s not that good."
An interesting tidbit came from a Grand National North official when asked
about the 2003 schedule – GN North wants "to move from some of the
duplicate dates" and expand to different tracks, including a potential
return of NHIS’ stand-alone Grand National North-Modified Series doubleheaders.
Such would be welcome, as the North cars, either by themselves or in tandem
with the Mods, have put on good races at NHIS over the years. Of recent, though,
Brad Leighton has been seemingly unstoppable. For awhile Brian Hoar dominated
the 125 – "Wow, he was gone," said Brad Leighton, "it’s not that
many times you have that opportunity to have a good car like he had" – but
Leighton clawed to the front amid lapped traffic and never looked back, despite
several late restarts.
Matt Kobyluck finished third and quipped he started racing is Grand National
North "to get away from Stafford." In all seriousness, "I enjoy
long races more than 35-lap sprints." As for the new low groove in the
turns, "The lower lane in the turns gives you a groove to really get down
underneath them (and) it allows you in the middle of the corner to rotate the
car and shoot right off the bottom….It’s made a big difference."
Leighton’s trick was to take on left side tires where most others took rights
only. "We had long stretches of green, and the car would actually pick up
speed. (The crew) was reading some lap times and I actually gained some
speed."
Finishing sixth in the 125 was Paul Andrews’ son Tim, driving a Ted Marsh #31
Chevrolet. Tim is a nineteen-year-old racer who has raced at Concord Speedway
and has "a bunch" of feature wins, this according to one of his
crewmen. "He was happy with the track."
Despite a public vote of confidence after qualifying by team owner Jim Smith,
one has to wonder about Jason Leffler’s future with Ultra Motorsports. With a
seven-second lead it appeared he tried to force the issue under Tom Carey and
both trucks wound up against the third-turn wall. Leffler’s pole was his seventh
of the season, but his crash lifted Terry Cook to his third win of the year.
The move of the race was by The Hammer – Mike Bliss knifed between Kevin
Harvick and a lapped Truck, took the lead off Four. The pass didn’t stick that
long, and Bliss ultimately lost power and fell back.
Luckless was Kevin Harvick, who appeared to have the Truck to beat but wound
up anything but close at the end.
He may talk in almost a monotone, but Morgan Shepherd can still crack people
up that way. Running both the Craftsman Truck and Winston Cup races, Shepherd
didn’t last long in either. "We burned a rear end up" on Saturday
after Rick Ware’s Dodge fell out. "We was super tight, and we gained on loosening
it up, then the rear end gave out. I told Dave (Dion, who helped get Shepherd
sponsorship for the Cup race) that the racetrack has really gotten tight. He
said his car was loose, and I said, ‘It won’t be loose today.’"
According to Shepherd, part of the problem is the use of radial tires.
"You can adjust much more with bias-ply tires. You can make a bigger
adjustment with bias-plies than with radials. At the Winston Cup level they’ve
talked about going back to bias-plies because of the expense. You put on a set
of radials and that’s $1,700." In contrast, a set of bias-plies costs in
the $6-700 range.
"A radial is so touchy that you can’t slip and slide, but on a bias-ply
you can lean harder on the tires," Shepherd concluded.
Dave Dion has been critical of the track for years, but now says, "They
got the track to race on now. If you were tight, I could get beside someone, but
the run off the turn, I wound up sliding. It’s a very usable groove, but you
have to set up for it. Now, I say leave it alone, it doesn’t need to be banked,
and Bob (Bahre) has worked hard at it."
There have been bizarre New England 300s before, but this one may have been
the strangest yet. On the one hand, the consensus of crewmen I interviewed
afterward was, in the words of Henry Benfield, "it was terrible" in
terms of ability to pass. But on the other hand, most of the twenty-two lead
changes in the race – historically an unusually high number for NHIS – occurred
on the racetrack. And the side by side racing, when it occurred, was usually
breathtaking.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth provided a great many of the fireworks,
swapping the lead several times – and in the process engaging in perhaps their
very first showdown for a race win I offhand can remember at the Winston Cup
level, this despite their famed rivalry. Junior’s day effectively ended when he
tried to pass Todd Bodine, got into his rear quarter panel, and spun down the
backstretch – rekindling memories of his famed "cue ball-headed fool"
tirade of 1999.
Kenseth’s day looked like a lock, but he slid far out of the groove at the
worst possible time, and then cutting tire down. "Matt got a lot of bite on
that restart," Ward Burton said. "About the third lap (of the run) I
saw Matt get loose off Two, and then I saw him get loose off Four, then he went
into One and got extremely loose. That’s when I figured there was something
going on with his tires."
Burton said that the new pavement "increased the size of the groove, but
it was treacherous….I was screaming about it (inability to pass cars) all day,
and Tommy said, ‘look, you just have to ride it out until they make a
mistake.’"
Getting out of the groove proved very treacherous, as Kyle Petty, Tony
Stewart, and several others who either crashed or barely avoided such
discovered. It has always been treacherous to get into marbles, but it was
particularly such this time around.
NASCAR President Mike Helton said, "I think it was different. A lot of
the drivers adapted to the new groove very well. There was some slipping and
sliding in Turn Four, but overall (the lower groove) was an improvement. I think
the fans got their money’s worth today."
So as far as the lower groove went, it did what it was supposed to do, but it
also re-exposed the ultimate issue in terms of New Hampshire’s
often-controversial nature as a racetrack – for super slick radial-shod
racecars, it has been treacherous to race on; for higher-drag bias-shod
machinery, it has been an excellent racetrack. The Winston Cup cars put on a
dramatic race, and NHIS’ reputation for dark horse and comeback winners came
through again.
Asked where he ranked NHIS in terms of favorability, Bill Davis ranked it as
his favorite right now – we of course wonder why. Davis, in all seriousness, was
doubly happy not only with Ward Burton’s win but with Hut Stricklin’s strong
effort. Both Davis and Burton felt almost liberated, having bagged their second
win of the season, the first time they’ve won more than one a year.
"The 23 had an awfully strong day," Davis said. "Our
flat-track program has grown by leaps and bounds, and Phillipe Lopez and the 23
have helped, so right now this is my favorite track."
Less likely to be so complimentary was Dale Jarrett, who led late and
finished third but flunked post race inspection by being an eighth too low.
In the rookie battle Jimmie Johnson has stolen the most headlines, but Ryan
Newman had a strong day despite a little controversy in pre-race inspection –
the front end was too wide and a wheel spacer had to be taken out. Greater width
means more forward bite, and the incident raises an interesting question – with
the constant loss of front down force in dirty air, wouldn’t allowing more
forward bite help solve the problem?