New Hampshire: NASCAR Nationwide Series News And Notes
Jun 25, 2008
CIA Stock Photo, Inc.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, five drivers have the chance to break the track’s string of 21 races without a repeat winner.
That’s the longest streak among active tracks in NASCAR’s national series and each member of the quintet has some recent momentum that might spur him on to becoming the first to pull the “double.”
Reigning series champion Carl Edwards (No. 60 Roush Fenway Ford) won at The Milwaukee Mile last weekend, his first series victory in over a year. His team was led by new crew chief Drew Blickesnderfer who was named to that post just days before.
Edwards has three career starts at New Hampshire, posting one win (2006) and two second place finishes.
Two-time series champion Kevin Harvick (No. 33 Camping World Chevrolet) is the defending race winner and has five top-five and six top-10 finishes at the 1.058-mile track. His victory last year came from the pole; Harvick is the all-time leader in poles at New Hampshire with three.
Harvick won last year for Richard Childress Racing and this year is driving his own KHI equipment. Two other drivers have posted the team’s three series wins, so Harvick is more than ready to register his first win in his own car.
Jason Keller (No. 11 America’s Incredible Pizza Company Chevrolet) won at New Hampshire in 2001 and is currently enjoying a stretch of two consecutive top-10 finishes.
Bobby Hamilton Jr. (No. 25 Curly’s Ford) was a New Hampshire winner in 2002 — his first victory in the series. He was 15th at Milwaukee, one of his better finishes in a tough first half of the season.
Kenny Wallace (No. 28 U.S. Border Patrol Chevrolet) won at NHMS in 1991, his second series victory. Now, he’s one of only three drivers in series history with 400 starts reaching that milestone last week at Milwaukee.
Halfway Home: New Hampshire Marks Season’s Mid Point
The June trek to New Hampshire marks the first half of the 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series season and all indications point to a second half to mirror — or exceed — the excitement of the first.
Ten different drivers have won races thus far, including six different winners over the last six races, the longest such streak in two years. That stat fits perfectly with the 21 different winners in the same number of races at NHMS.
Three series-only regulars have collected wins with two — Brad Keselowski (No. 88 U.S. NAVY Chevrolet) and Joey Logano — having done so in back-to-back fashion. Keselowski (second) has led the series-only regular charge into the top 10 in the standings where five drives have resided following each of the last nine races.
A return to New Hampshire and a combination event with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series also draws the first half of the stand-alone season to a close and series-only regulars used that time to show marked improvement in their overall results.
In the five combination events leading up to the recent trio of stand-alone races, series-only regulars placed in the top 10 at a 44% clip, while 32% fashioned finishes within the top five in those combo races.
Stirring The Pot: Keselowski, Logano Producing Rivalry
It began last month in Charlotte when late on-track extracurricular activity between Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin (No. 32 Haas Avocadoes from Mexico Toyota) sparked a post-race pit road scuffle between their JR Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing teams.
Keselowski’s third-place finish was his best career effort at the time and although he had been producing solid finishes before that race, recognition began to grow for the 24-year-old.
That same weekend, Joey Logano turned 18. He made his much-anticipated series debut for JGR the following week at Dover International Speedway and finished sixth. Keselowski was seventh.
See where this is going?
Over the next three races, the two drivers took the “I-can-do-better-than-you” stance and the results have pointed to a budding rivalry that not only shows on-track (refer to the incident at Milwaukee where Logano moved Keselowski out of the way and out of the lead) but statistically as well.
The chart below chronicles the four races in which both drivers have competed.
The rivalry will be on hold until next month at Gateway International Raceway when Logano is next scheduled to run.
Although Joey Logano won’t race this weekend in New Hampshire — his JGR teammate, Tony Stewart, will drive the No. 20 Old Spice Toyota in the event — he will be part of the race weekend.
Logano, a native of Middletown, Conn., and Scott Wimmer (No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet) will speak at Nationwide Insurance’s “Driving While Distracted” educational program Thursday from 5-7 p.m. at “Race Fever” in downtown Concord.
