High gas prices vs. this race fan going to watch NASCAR at New Hampshire Motor Speedway once or twice a year.

Last weekend, before heading up to Loudon for the Cup Series race, I wrote a preview article for last weekend’s Lenox Tools 301 covering Kevin Harvick, his #29 Shell RCR racing team and his two teammates Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton and there history at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, after writing that article, I received an interested and yet revealing comment that read:

“Great Article for the entire race weekend. I live in Connecticut and usually try to go to one of the two Loudon races every year and unfortunately this is my first year I will not be going and of course it is due to the high cost of gasoline. It really kills me to miss something that I truly enjoy watching in person and have to settle for sitting in front of my TV, it is just not the same.”

While I was shocked with the comment, I really shouldn’t have been, this is not the first time I have read a comment like this before on the internet and yet it seems to be a common theme with racing fans right now."

I feel for any race fan who has to choose to stay home over taking in a race, whether it’s a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, a Nationwide Series race, a Truck Series race, a Modified race, a IRL, ALMS, NHRA and etc. or just a trip to your local short track due to high gas prices and while this past weekend my father and I did take in our first of hopefully two trips this year to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for last Sunday’s Lenox Tools 301, keep in mind that there is a big difference from this trip to the normal every year trips to Loudon, this time, we were invited as bloggers by Shell to the race to write a second feature on Kevin Harvick and his #29 Shell RCR racing team which you can read here, however, if we were not invited by Shell, the question now is, would we have gone as race fans?

Yes and no, while I have been a race fan, mainly NASCAR since the early 1990’s (thinking 1992), I have never sat in the grandstands for a Cup Series race, both of my Cup Series races have been in Kevin Harvick’s pits via Shell, however I do go up to New Hampshire Motor Speedway once or twice a year for either the Friday practice and qualifying with the Camping World East Series race or on Saturday for Cup Series final practice (happy hour), along with the Modified Tour race and either the Nationwide Series race or Truck Series race and I have done this since before 1999.

The cost is less on those two days and I love watching the modifieds in action, there’s nothing like it and then to top it off with either the Nationwide or Truck Series race is great, it’s a long and exciting day at the race track. My father and I do plan on going back up in September on Friday or Saturday for that very reason even with $4 gallon gas prices and we drive a Jeep Liberty up there which is a 2 and ½ hour ride with $2 tolls one way, but you never know considering food prices and extra money… it’s over $60 to fill the gas tank.

So besides covering Kevin Harvick on race day, what else happened and what about photos? While we were up in New Hampshire, there was so much that happened during the day… starting with walking through the garage area, you couldn’t help but notice the crowds around Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s garage stall, Tony Stewart’s, Jeff Burton’s, what a busy place. In walking around, several teams have little picture cards of the drivers in front of the haulers, the Harvick one was a three photo hologram, nice touch. We also noticed the #7 car of Robby Gordon, his team was wrapping his car with his new sponsor Camping World, interesting sight.

The pre-show of the Motorcycles was a welcome treat, I was even able to snap a few photos in the process of watching it and they even had a band, too much bass for me, I prefer country music, you know Garth Brook, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Swift, just to name a few. One thing that NASCAR really needs to do, is start these races at 1pm, this race after 2pm on the east coast is stupid, the entire race would have been run, yes, all 301 laps would have been finished before the heavy rains came. This is not the first time this has happened and it will not be the last time.

During the race, I ended up sitting on Kevin Havick’s pit box from just after the first pitstop just before lap 70 to the end of the race (around 200 laps total), during that time, I had my camera in hand, taking several photos, what a view, the only picture I couldn’t get was Harvick’s pitstop as I didn’t want to take photos of their operations on top of the pitbox including what was on the computers…that was my own call. I saw the Montoya/Busch wreck on TV, that was funny, Montoya totally took him out and then Busch’s car came back and hit him, that’s funny stuff right there, couldn’t have happened to two more hated drivers in the garage area, nice touch.

After the rains came, and a sight of the lightning behind the grandstands, I quickly climbed down from the pitbox, not the place to be with lightning in the area. We ended up taking shelter in the media center, interesting, Michael Waltrip showed up two minutes later after the race was called, he did an interview with a radio station I think, what did I do, I walked over and got a cold drink and watched the interview, I was only seven feet away, listening to the interview, Mikey, we were in the right place at the right time at the end of the race, then he and the 3rd place driver had their interviews with the rest of the media, unique sight to say the least.

Finally, we left to exit the infield tunnel and then all hell broke loss, since the driveway in front of the tunnel and out to the road was full of fans and was that was for at least one hour or more, we decided to exit were the fans exit via the back road behind the speedway, mistake, we sat in line for 2 hours and get this listening to the Garth Brooks “Ultimate Hits”, both CD’s with over 35 tracks, by the time we left, the 2nd CD had already started over. At one point, we were in a downpour and I though hail at one point. Once we exited the parking lot on to Rt. 106, it took us 2 and ½ hours including stopping for gasoline $57 and food at McDonalds. What a day, SMI needs to fix the parking, there’s no reason for these hold ups on the NHMS grounds.


All photos were taken by me (Brian Vermette) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this past Sunday (June 29, 2008) throughout the garage area, pits and during the race. (All photos are copyrighted.)

Enjoy, last Sunday was incredible.

- Racedriven