Friday Was A Busy Day At The New Hampshire Motor Speedway
Story By: AMY HARROP / RPW – LOUDON, NH – Friday at NHMS was jam-packed with drivers from all 4 divisions working to fine-tune their cars for the 3-day race weekend ahead.
Kyle Larson, who is typically a top-10 driver at NHMS, topped the leaderboard in the first Monster Energy Cup Series race at the track on Friday afternoon with a the top speed of 133.971 mph. Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Busch followed, continuing their long line of strong performances at New Hampshire’s premier short track.
Kyle Busch was also on the top of the leaderboard for the first XFINITY Series practice of the day, with a speed of 128.667. Rookies Matt Tifft, Spencer Gallagher and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top 4 drivers in the first practice, proving that there is a great chance of a rookie driver taking home the win in the Overton’s 200 tomorrow afternoon. The second XFINITY Series practice of the day was plagued by rain, with drivers only able to get in a handful of laps before the yellow flag was brought out due to heavy drizzle on the racing surface.
The 35 lap Whelen Modified Tour “Whelen All-Star Shootout” took place on Friday afternoon, with Ryan Preece pulling double duty with the XFINITY Series and Ryan Newman pulling double duty with the Monster Energy Cup Series. Newman is no stranger to joining in on the action in the series at New Hampshire, seeing that he’s been participating in the Modified events at New Hampshire since 2008. Newman is typically top-5 driver in the division at New Hampshire, and he continued his success in the All Star Shootout, shooting to the lead in the second half of the race after starting the race back in the 16th starting position. Before racing action began, Newman took time to talk to the media about his struggles since his win earlier this season in Phoenix, saying, “Our 1.5 mile program has really struggled. Our short track program is not what we need it to be…even in Phoenix we didn’t lead the amount of laps we should have. We lead the right one, but we haven’t dominated.”, emphasizing the fact that he needs to lead more laps in the #31 car this season. Newman maintained a steady lead in his #77 Menard’s machine over the rest of the pack, but the #6 of Ryan Preece, who had started 19th in the feature, was at his heels. As the laps began to wind down, Preece began planning his attack, pulling closer to the rear bumper of Newman. On the final lap, Preece made a risky pass to the inside of Newman in turn 2, with Newman nearly losing his car to the outside wall. Newman saved his #77 machine and managed to take home a runner-up finish, with Preece taking home the win. In his post race interview, Preece explained his last-lap move, saying, “I felt that right rear get into him…I think Ryan’s a great person, so you don’t want to have to do that to get the win.” The two drivers later shared a laugh and exchanged handshakes when they met for their post-race interviews in the media center, with Newman laughing about how there’s “plenty of time” to find the #6 machine again for some rubbin’ and racin’ tomorrow in the Eastern Propane & Oil 100.
Kyle Busch is yet another driver pulling double duty this weekend. During his press conference in the early afternoon, he talked about running Thunder Road in Vermont last night, saying that the whole deal came together in no time at all. This was also Busch’s first trip to Thunder Road in his career. But, Busch didn’t exactly have the most pleasant experience towards the end of the race, saying, “I have no idea what the guy next to me was doing – but he just flat out drove right through me, put me in the frontstretch wall, which made me climb the wall and…’cause the wall’s off camber to the race track – so I climbed the wall and got off the wall, spun around and everybody else missed me that was behind me in the field, but, after that, everything was knocked out of place with the car. The steering wheel wasn’t right…it didn’t feel right…and so it just…we were done for the night.” He says that he thought he had a legitimate chance to take home the victory, and, although this one didn’t end out pretty, he’s not afraid to do it all again.
The Cup Series events ended with the Monster Energy Cup Series qualifying session, which started with a hold-up for 7-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who was held up when his #48 car was still sitting in pre-qualifying inspection at the start of the session. He was able to get on track in time to make a qualifying run, but his #48 car wound up loose on his first lap, nearly sending his tail end into the wall. Johnson managed to save his car, pulling off a decent qualifying run. Kyle Larson, who was first in practice, scored the top spot in round 1, followed by Erik Jones and Jamie McMurray. Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon, Ty Dillon and Danica Patrick were among those that didn’t make the cut. AJ Allmendinger followed a similar pattern to Jimmie Johnson in round #2, getting loose on his first lap out. Kyle Busch momentarily rocketed to the top of the leaderboard before being defeated once again by the #42 of Kyle Larson. Kyle Larson, Kyle Busch and Erik Jones were the top 3 in round 3, while Joey Logano, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Aric Almirola were among those that didn’t advance to the final round. This was a shock to many, seeing that Logano has been so strong at New Hampshire in the past. NHMS is where he scored his first win back in 2009. Being his “hometown track”, NHMS holds a ton of great memories for Logano. Of his history with NHMS, he said, “I started my first Cup race here, watched my first one here, won our first one here. It makes it a special place anytime I come here.” This also marked Aric Almirola’s first week back to competition after suffering froma T5 compression fracture after a wreck in Kansas. Of the drivers that filled in for him in his absence, he said, “I think that it’s a tough thing for anybody to get thrown into a seat that is not their race car. They are trying to pitch in and do their part as a relief driver. I was really happy and really grateful for the guys that stepped in…to come and give their effort and their two-cents and for a lot of their comments to match up with some of the things that I have been saying about the car, at least for this year…that was really nice.”
Kyle Larson once again shot to the top of the leaderboard in round 3, with Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson rounding out the top 3 for Sunday’s Overton’s 301. After post-qualifying inspection was completed, it was announced by NASCAR that Kyle Larson failed post-race inspection due to an unapproved rear deck fin lid, leading to NASCAR discrediting his #1 starting position for Sunday’s race.
Truex, who will now start in the top spot on Sunday, is fresh off of a win in Kentucky, says that New Hampshire has been one of the tracks that he has run well at, but he’s still yet to fully master the track. “It’s just been tough to put it all together to get to the finishes, but we’ve ran well and I’m definitely looking forward to taking advantage of that this weekend.” He also says that he will be using this race to prepare for the playoffs in September, saying, “We’ll just go through this weekend and try to do the best job that we can do, try to go to victory lane and then figure out whether we’re going to run on VHT for the playoffs or not.” VHT is the big talk of the town among all drivers this weekend, and everyone has mixed reviews on the subject.
VHT is a chemical substance that’s used to improve traction on a race surface and/or race tires. VHT is in effect this weekend, and everyone was talking about it. Of the VHT, Truex said, “…the VHT is just another thing we’ll have to figure out, so we’ll see how it goes
17-year-old Chase Purdy earned his fourth consecutive pole for Saturday’s K&N East United Site Services 70. He was followed by Ronnie Bassett Jr., Todd Gilliland, Harrison Burton and rookie Sheldon Creed.
The racing action continues tomorrow, July 15th, with the XFINITY series’ Overton’s 300, the K&N East United Site Services 70 and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour’s Eastern Propane & Oil 100, so join us at NHMS for a day full of action-packed racing with two rounds of Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice and NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying.
