IF WE COULD just take a quick look back
at last week's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 weekend at New Hampshire
Motor Speedway, it certainly can't hurt to mention what a fantastic
NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event it was on Saturday.
Seventeen lead changes over the final
half of the race. The winningest driver in Tour history taking the
checkered flag by the closest margin of victory in his career. The
spec engine versus the built engine, the halftime break, the race
between the old guard and the new guard in Modified racing.
You hear a lot of talk in the garage
area about how “NASCAR is killing this series,” but it certainly
looked alive and well in the Town Fair Tire 100 on Saturday. Anyone
who says otherwise is trying to advance an agenda, plain and simple.
First, on the spec engine program being
implemented by NASCAR.
The talk all night on Friday after
qualifying was how Ron Silk – one of only two drivers in the field
utilizing the spec engine – was four-tenths of a second faster than
anybody else in qualifying. If that's the case, then what's holding
teams back from buying one themselves? The entire debate led to an
underground uproar about how now teams using traditional motors built
independently were going to have to buy the spec engine just to be
competitive.
Maybe that's true. If it is, it's
coming at a cost of roughly half what it costs to have a motor built.
If the notion is that suddenly longtime
engine builders like Billy The Kid or Petit are going to lose
business, well, that's not exactly true, either. According to one
NASCAR K&N Pro Series East driver – where the spec engine has
become more the norm than the exception, even among teams with Sprint
Cup Series backing – local engine builders will still turn a profit
on the spec engines. Someone, after all, needs to assemble and
maintain them.
As for the halftime break Saturday, it
did change the racing. With so many caution periods in the first half
of the event, and only two after it, tire strategy wasn't a factor.
However, as Mike Stefanik said after winning – he knew that he
didn't have to save anything. Go as hard as you can for 50 laps, bolt
on four fresh tires without losing any track position, and go as hard
as you can for another 50 laps.
What fans saw was all-out racing from
start-to-finish, and not just for the final 20 laps. The lead pack of
6-10 cars stayed as a pack throughout the afternoon – and on the
final lap no fewer than six drivers were legitimate threats to win.
Then there was the added bonus of
having the series veterans like Silk, Stefanik and Donny Lia mixing
it up with relative newcomers to success at New Hampshire like Rowan
Pennink, Doug Coby and Ryan Preece.
It had been several years since we saw
a race this good from the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at New
Hampshire Motor Speedway.
It's no coincidence that the race came
in light of changes from NASCAR this season at the track – and not
in spite of them.
THERE ARE TWO marquee Late Model events
in New England each season – the three-year-old ACT Invitational at
NHMS and the midsummer tradition at Oxford Plains Speedway, the TD
Bank Oxford 250.
The 39th running of the TD
Bank 250 is slated for Sunday, and a who's who of Late Model racing
in New England is among the contenders for the second-richest short
track race in America. The overall purse for the TD Bank 250 is
bigger than those of either the Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway
in Pensacola, Fla., each December or the People's United Milk Bowl at
Thunder Road International Speedbowl in the fall.
There are ACT Late Model Tour standouts
like Brian Hoar and Joey Polewarczyk Jr. to consider. There are
two-time TD Bank 250 winners Eddie MacDonald and Ben Rowe trying to
join an elite list of three-time 250 winners in Dave Dion, Mike Rowe
and Ralph Nason. There are up-and-coming talents like Nick Sweet,
Austin Theriault and Ben Ashline. Then there's the list of Oxford
Plains Speedway weekly competitors such as Shawn Martin, T.J.
Brackett and Travis Stearns.
And we haven't even mentioned nine-time
Oxford track champion Jeff Taylor, who has yet to win an Oxford 250.
Or 2011 Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne.
The format is unique, of course, and
plays as much a part in the race's outcome as the talent and
equipment on the race track. There are no time trials and relatively
few provisionals to fall back on for more than 70 cars trying to
qualify for a starting field of less than 40 – it's all determined
by a luck-of-the-draw heat race lineup. Making matters worse – it
all happens in about a seven-hour span, so there's no off-night to go
back to the shop and regroup.
Most stay away from predictions, but
where's the sport in that? If these guys are going to stick their
necks out this weekend, then I'm going to as well.
My podium prediction for Sunday's main
event: 1. Nick Sweet, 2. Austin Theriault, 3. Jeff Taylor.
Sweet has been very, VERY good at
Oxford in ACT Late Model Tour competition over the last few years –
and were it not for Kyle Busch's invasion into the 2011 event, Sweet
would have won last year's TD Bank 250 in a landslide.
Theriault is ready for his breakout
performance in a marquee event, and the 250 laps of tire management
and patience plays right into the 18-year-old Fort Kent driver's
hands.
Taylor has more championships than
anybody at Oxford, and he's won them in both Super Late Models and
Late Models. Nobody short of Mike Rowe knows how to get around the
flat, circle at Oxford better.
Feel free to leave your own podium
prediction in the comments below.
THE NASCAR WHELEN Modified Tour
championship is now Doug Coby's to lose after finishing third at New
Hampshire last weekend.
GLOBAL RALLYCROSS' DEBUT at New
Hampshire last weekend was a success.
As predicted, the racing was
entertaining, wildly unpredictable and entirely unique (and foreign)
to the stock-car racing fan base at most NASCAR events.
It was also a pleasant surprise to see
just how many fans stuck around both Friday and Saturday nights to
watch Travis Pastrana, Ken Block and other X-Games stars compete.
But this much is true, too: It's not a
great event on television. Much like NHRA drag racing, you really
have to be at the track to appreciate what these guys are doing on
every lap – from 70-foot jumps, to chicanes, to dirt turns and
slashing through water. There's a lot of down time for track
maintenance and car repairs, not unlike drag racing, and that can
seem like an eternity on TV.
Having said that, watching 10 cars
burst off the standing start in the final, or seeing one car take the
70-foot jump while another crosses underneath it, or watching one car
try and make up ground after going through the “Long Cut” corner
(a course extension each car must take at least once during each
race) is breathtaking.
When they come back next year, make
sure you're there. You'll be talking about it for a while.
YOU'VE BEEN A great audience. Try the
fried clam platter and don't forget to tip your waitress. The
Boneheads are here, so stick around.
– TB
This writer clearly knows which side of his bread has the butter. Makes it go down with the kool-aid he is drinking.
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