I went with my son-in-law, Mark, to the New Hampshire International Speedway in Loudon, NH, to see my first ever NASCAR race. I’ve enjoyed motor racing since I was a kid, both in the UK and USA, but I’ve always gone to “road courses”: I like to see drivers turn left and right!
The race was sold out (the NHIS seats 91,000 101,000), the weather was warm and sunny, and it was a good race. The only frustrations were the number of cautions (a dozen, each requiring track crews to come out with ambulances, wreckers, and street sweepers to clean up the circuit), and the stupid restart system which deliberately mixes slower, lapped traffic into the pattern. The effect is to significantly penalize the 3rd place and subsequent drivers compared with the first two. Only after the very last caution of the race, a couple of laps from the end, was there a simple uncomplicated restart, and it led to some really close racing.
I had a dilemma: who to cheer for? I know little about the NASCAR circuit, and have no strong affiliation to any team, driver, or sponsored product(!). On the other hand, watching a sporting event “in the abstract” isn’t very satisfying. Needing a hat, I wandered over to the trailers selling memorabilia and decided on Matt Kenseth, last year’s champion in a Ford “Taurus”.
(They use the names of street cars, but don’t be fooled.) I bought a hat and a model car, (shown here) and returned to my seat to watch the race. Matt had qualified poorly, back in 31st position. It was fascinating to watch him fighting his way up through the field to 4th place, coping with lapped traffic, overcoming a mistake in the pits, and so forth.
And just for the record, Kurt Busch (Matt’s team-mate) won the race from Jeff Gordon, with Ryan Newman (who led for the first 170 out of 300 laps) coming in third.
I’ll be going again. Thanks, Mark!