Hey gang, we’re back from a very exciting weekend. For those of you who weren’t there, and judging by the fact that 188 people were looking us up at 1:47 PM on Saturday, there were quite a few of you, many missed some great racing action at Loudon. The Modified race culminated in a controversial finish under caution which I shall explain later.

This weekend’s accounts include Shopgirl’s first visit to the Magic Mile. On behalf of Vicki and yours truly, we would like to thank the Bahre family, Fred Neergaard, Kristen Costa, Jolene, Kathy, Bill and the rest of the staff at New Hampshire International Speedway (NHIS) for providing us with the highest level of access available and making our lives easy, especially as it caused them all to go out of their ways for us several times. They never batted an eyelash; they really went the extra mile to help us.

Things got underway in earnest on Thursday for the Modifieds in the North Garage. That’s the NEXTEL Cup garage for those who aren’t familiar with the NHIS layout. Most of the teams set up shop behind their transporters and a garage turned into one of the largest indoor tire gardens I had ever seen. Unlike last season, practice and time trials went off without much hindrance from the weather, although it did sprinkle in the morning.

There was one incident during Modified practice. The #69 of Tommy Cloce wound up in a burning heap at the entrance of turn three near the end of the session. Ed and the Cloce team weren’t bashful about pointing the finger at the driver of the #18 as they loaded up to go home. I didn’t see it. As such I really can’t say much about it. I am just glad that Tommy was okay after the bad ride.

Rookie Danny Sammons had a tough moment during the scuff session before qualifying. He reported that he had a right front suspension failure that put the Ralph Solhem #0 into the fence. The team took a provisional without an attempt at time.

I think that Jim Storace had a problem during time trials. It resulted in the #47 taking a provisional spot like the #0. Jim and his crew slaved all day Friday to repair the damage that was incurred to their car.

Zach Sylvester took down the pole as the last man on the track. He nabbed that position from Jimmy Blewett who held the spot for about ninety seconds. Reggie Ruggiero, who was the fourteenth driver to attempt time, had held the top spot until the last two drivers took to the track.

Following qualifying, the teams loaded up their stuff and headed to park their transporters in the infield. This was not a pretty site. However, it could have been worse. At least it wasn’t raining. The location of the SPEED Stage was arguably the biggest guffaw of the weekend. I’ll get to the few problems I saw and possible solutions later as well.

Thursday, Vicki was worried about her flight to Manchester. Fortunately, everything worked out and she arrived around midnight. I have to say that I was quite impressed by the Manchester airport and the improvements they continue to do there.

For those of you who got to meet Shopgirl in person, she was glad to see everyone she met. We met John Morgan in the Jack Ratta Media Center (JRMC). Many of those who have watched bobsledding in the past know John as the voice of American bobsledding. With all due respect to Bob Cuneo, Morgan is American bobsledding. He is one of the nicest people anyone will ever meet and we had a blast every time we saw him.

Of course John was there as a part of the effort to support the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project that Don Barker had put together with Carl Edwards. Carl was fastest in practice on Thursday and qualified fourteenth before heading off to another obligation.

Don’s team was decked out in really sharp shirts on Saturday that were emblazoned with “Race For the Sleds” on the back, the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project logo on the front, the #50 on each sleeve with Todd Bodine’s facsimile signature under the number on one side and Carl Edwards’ name on the other. Bodine will drive the #50 in September at NHIS. “Hey Don, do those shirts come in men’s sizes?”

Much of the pre-race build up surrounded the participation of Edwards and two-time and defending NEXTEL Cup Champion, Tony Stewart in the New England 100. Stewart’s ride was fielded by Curt Chase as a companion car to his #77 driven by Doug Coby. Tony drove the #94 in support of Racing Against Cancer in association with Foxwoods Resort Casino. Stewart qualified nineteenth in a car he described to one person as “scary loose”.

Other than those on the #47 and the #0, few of the Whelen Modified Tour competitors seemed to have much to do on Friday. Jerry Marquis, Danny Sammons and Alex Hoag did pull double duty in the Grand National Division, Busch East Series race. Did someone say “Street Stocks”?

It has been quite apparent that NASCAR intends on expanding its’ Regional racing into Mexico and Canada. One of the benefits to racetracks in the United States to get a NASCAR sanction is the sanctioning body’s strength and leverage with insurance. That isn’t an issue in Canada however as Canadians receive free health care there.

They may have free health care up there but they apparently do not have free driving lessons. I’m probably being too harsh on Pierre Bourque by saying that. However, he was a rolling chicane through much of the Busch East Series race. His #10 car was probably too damaged to continue and the leaders didn’t know whether to pass the moving debris field high or low when they encountered Monsieur Bourque.

Leaving the track on Friday after the Busch East race was an adventure. Vicki and I were passed twice on the way out of the track by shuttles that were unoccupied. I think the driver of the van was just kind of circling the infield. We did figure out why the vans weren’t going out past the tunnel.

As mentioned earlier, the SPEED Stage was erected right opposite the tunnel entrance. Consequently there were folks leaving the infield on foot and in vehicles, people leaving the I-lot in vehicles, spectators headed toward the campgrounds out of the grandstands and they were all converging onto a couple of thousand Cup fans who wanted to get their two and one half seconds of fame on cable television.

We seemed stranded on our exit from I-lot. Several drivers in front of us made U-turns to try to find another way out. I had already looked before we turned left, the gate was locked at the top of the hill and those who were turning around would invariably wind up waiting behind us. Fortunately the Mounted Police came through to make way for vehicular traffic. The equine assistance aided our careful exit through the humanity: although Vicki wanted me to stop the car so she could pet one of the horses.

To correct this kind of madness in the future it would be best to put the SPEED Stage up by X-lot. The folks who hang out up there would probably have the whole thing dismantled and sold on eBay overnight. Another idea would be to put it at Weir’s beach up by Lake Winnipesaukee.

Seriously, it would seem that with as much havoc that was created with as few people that were in attendance on Friday compared to how many might be in attendance on a Sunday, that a change might be a good idea to keep pedestrian and vehicular traffic separated. Were a large pedestrian bridge erected between the grandstands and J-lot, it would eliminate much of the cross traffic. Regardless of any other future changes, a designated gathering area for a television show audiences winding up in the most congested area of vehicular and pedestrian traffic on the property is senseless.

Another change would be to put the competitors that will race on Friday out on pit road Thursday morning and for the duration of their stay. By doing that, it accelerates the departure process after the Friday race and the transporters for that group can be parked outside of the track. Some people think they are getting ripped off if they don’t get a garage on Thursday. I just think that leads to too much additional work as the teams have to move their equipment from location to location and are invariably on top of one another in the infield.

I witnessed something on Saturday morning that disarmed any person that might have complained that they “deserved” to park in the infield. NHIS PR Director, Fred Neergaard, walked all of the way in to the JRMC from the I-lot. Fred is a person who leads by example and that example of selflessness was quite inspiring. Fred obviously has his own reserved spot by the building and could have had one of dozens of people pick him up in a golf cart to get him to his workplace. He gave away his parking space to someone else.

Eric Beers had an incident in Saturday morning’s final practice session that put Ole Blue on the truck. The Modified Tour is quite a family and The Flamingo Motorsports gang unloaded their backup car for the BRE team. That kind of generosity will put Eric Sanderson in line for the NASCAR Sportsmanship Award at the end of this season.

2005 NASCAR Weekly Series National Champion, Peyton Sellers, had a press briefing in the JRMC Saturday morning. NASCAR Vice President of Corporate Communications, Jim Hunter, hosted the session noting that Peyton was the youngest driver to ever win the Weekly Series National Championship. The Danville, Virginia native earned his championship racing primarily at his home track, South Boston Speedway with additional stops at Motor Mile and Caraway.

Sellers performed double duty this weekend driving Whelen sponsored cars for Ted Marsh in the Busch East and Busch Series races. Whelen Engineering’s Phil Kurze is very happy to be associated with Peyton, who is very well spoken and a part of a driver development deal with Richard Childress Racing. Although Sellers led the first nine circuits of the Busch East Series race, he will probably write this weekend off to experience with finishes of thirty-third and thirty-seventh respectively in the Busch East and Busch Series events.

There was a major announcement at the JRMC on Saturday morning. North American lighting leader, OSRAM SYLVANIA, announced that it had signed a five-year extension to the sponsorship agreement for the September NASCAR weekend at NHIS. The announcement was made by Charlie Jerabek, President and CEO of OSRAM SYLVANIA and Bob Bahre, Chairman of NHIS. I will discuss this further in an article that will post shortly.

Several of our competitors chose to do double duty at New Hampshire. Jerry Marquis, Danny Sammons and Alex Hoag all strapped in for the Busch East Series race in addition to the Whelen Modified Tour event. Sammons and Hoag finished better in the Modified event with results twenty-third and thirteenth place. In the BES race they finished thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth respectively. Jerry Marquis wound up battling for the win in the Busch East Series race, finishing third and having a great run in Bob Garbarino’s #v4 Saturday finishing eighth.

Ted Christopher attempted to do double duty this weekend as well. He battled near the front of the Tour race, finishing seventh. Ted also attempted to qualify for the NEXTEL Cup race in the #61 for Bob Jenkins’ Front Row Motorsports. Christopher missed qualifying for the LENOX Industrial Tools 300 by one spot at twenty-two thousandths of a second.

The folks from LENOX gave us some really great swag. Most of the folks who received it won’t know what to do with much more than the bag. Attention carpenters and car builders; speak to your favorite media people about great LENOX products. Office Depot also came through with some supplies that the vermin quickly glommed up. Most media people have a better idea what to do with a steno pad than a pack of reciprocating saw blades: more for me.

Several drivers had encounters with Dr Stewart as he battled to the front of the Whelen Modified Tour feature event. I later heard that some of our competitors were ribbing him over his physique in the driver introduction line. I think he took note of who made the wise cracks and roughed up a few of them on his way towards the front. I’ll expand a little on that later.

Tony did some things with a Modified I hadn’t seen done before, like sticking it four-wide entering turn one at NHIS, like taking a ride through the road course at full-speed and grabbing about five feet of air before rejoining the fray without crashing. He also extended a caution by stopping on the back straightaway for a few seconds after he had just pitted. A noted author, who is quite familiar with the Columbus, Indiana native said, “He couldn’t get the wrapper off of the Twinkie.”

That infield trip through the road course and the air-grab wasn’t some kind of X-games exhibition that Stewart was trying to pull ala Tony Hawk. Apparently Jerry Marquis had enough of Stewart’s creative uses of bumping and drafting and also probably remembered what Tony had done to Matt Kenseth at Daytona in February. I think Jerry gave Smoke a little of what he felt was his own medicine. I still can’t believe Stewart and the #94 didn’t wind up in a smoking heap against the fence.

Tony Stewart did something else that some thought impossible before this weekend. He brought Pattie Petty to the site where we lost her son Adam. Tony had previously pledged one million dollars to the Victory Junction Gang Camp over ten years. When Stewart was able to complete his pledge in less than half of that time, he decided to promise to get Kyle and Pattie another million over the next five years on Friday morning at the JRMC.

Victory Junction Gang Camp was founded by Kyle and Pattie in memory of their son Adam, who we lost on Mother’s Day weekend in 2000. The presentation was a moving moment for those who were in attendance. We can only hope that Tony’s generosity and thoughtfulness will help lead to healing for Kyle and Pattie.

On the ferry coming home, #58 team seemed quite steamed with Stewart. One team member told me that he wished Tony had gone straight into the wall when he got airborne. Another was probably canceling his membership the #20 Cup driver’s fan club. I don’t think anyone wished he would get hurt but they were still quite upset. Kevin was the person who mentioned the ribbing that Stewart got during driver introductions. Moral of the story; don’t make fun of fat people.

There was quite a bit of over-aggressiveness demonstrated by our Tour drivers this weekend. That was especially evident at the front of the field. The reckless abandon that was put on display led to eight caution flags for forty-eight laps under caution. The amazing thing is that we didn’t have more cautions than we did.

The racing action was insane. There were twenty-eight exchanges of the lead at the start/finish line and the lead changed far more often than that. Although the action was great enough that there were fewer than two green flag laps per lead change, that amount of caution laps would not be acceptable for a televised race.

With the Tour race on Saturday combined with the addition of Edwards and Stewart to the field, the NHIS PR Staff was obviously worried about space in the press box. One of the mainstream media people, who were not familiar with Modified racing, asked during the event, “Why don’t I see these Modifieds on TV.” Our buddy, Bones Bourcier, quickly replied, “Because people might actually watch them.”

I didn’t see what happened to Carl Edwards that caused the front-end damage he sustained on the front end of the #50. Edwards slowing on the track brought out a caution period on lap forty-three. Carl was fast throughout all of our action on Thursday and Saturday and it was a shame to see the Bo-Dyn Bobsled Project car out of the race.

Lap fifty-three saw the #18 slow on the back straightaway. The race remained under green. Donny Lia finished thirty-eighth with an expired engine.

Caution did fall on lap sixty-six as Doug Coby wound up driver’s side against the SAFER barrier at the north end of the Speedway. There were those who said that it didn’t look like he hit that hard in the press box. It looked to me like he sustained significant damage.

The Rob Summers and Rick Fuller got together coming off of turn four with less than a dozen circuits remaining in the scheduled distance. The #1 and the #00 were done for the day. Then we went back to green on lap ninety-six and things got interesting.

The lead was changing like crazy and drivers were passing for position all over the track. The #06 of Steve Whitt had some kind of contact that pushed his sidebar against his right rear tire. Smoke billowed off of the tire as Whitt continued to attempt finishing the race, as Tour Director Ed Cox demanded over the NASCAR radio that the #06 pull off the track. Whitt was “posted” but failed to heed.

Then Whitt’s tire blew. Steve was actually driving Joe Mongeau’s #49 renumbered for the event as he had experience some sort of trouble with his car. Whitt spun to the infield in turn three as the leaders drove through turns one and two at the south end of the track on the final lap. The call came, “Put it out!” over the radio and the caution flew.

While all of this was happening, our Live Updates ground to a halt. I don’t know whether we were posting information too quickly or if there were a few of our viewers that got a hold of the Butterfinger bars but suddenly we couldn’t post. Vicki and I gathered our stuff to go downstairs and cross the track.

As we began to put our things together, officials directed John Blewett, III to keep going down pit road and brought James Civali to victory lane. I wasn’t sure about the whole finish but I know what I saw. When the caution was called and when it flew, the #66 was in the lead. I questioned that call in the press box to no avail.

I would have been happy to see anyone of the drivers that were battling for the lead near the end of the race take down the win. Maybe Civali, the rookie, who was celebrating his first Whelen Modified Tour win, had actually won the race. James has certainly changed my opinion through his performance this season. I was happy for Don King who has suffered through numerous tribulations to get to this point.

I would have been happy to see The Reg get back to the NHIS winners circle. Eddie Flemke and the Teto team have been performing well and it would have been good to see Eddie celebrate. Mike Stefanik and Tony Stewart made great charges from the back and really looked like either of them could be able to get it done and either would have been a great story.

Todd Szegedy, Ted Christopher and Jerry Marquis all put on demonstrations of their talents and each would have deserved to be in victory lane had they finished first. I would have been happy for any of them. I saw John Blewett in the lead when the caution flew.

Had I not had that image in the back of my mind, I would have waited with Vicki for Don and James to get done with victory lane to congratulate them. The way I figured, this finish was going to be contested and I would have had to tell them what I saw. I didn’t want to rain on their parade.

I was on a mission. Even though we had enjoyed a great time at the Magic Mile, I wanted to get Vicki to Riverhead for a dose of bullring Modified racing. We dashed out to the car and drove towards New London to try to get to the six o’clock ferry. We missed it by less than a minute. A vehicle that was just ahead of us got onboard and we were told we were too late.

We caught the next ferry, an hour later, and by the time we got to my hometown racetrack, the Modified race was over. However, during the time we traveled from Loudon to New London, I found out I have more friends than I ever knew I had. My cell phone rang nearly constantly from the time we hit I-93.

People wanted to know who won. They were asking me, “Who finished where?” I didn’t know. I figured it would take quite some time to sort out the video versus loop data to get an official finish. I knew that Mark Mockovak would email us an accurate finish once it was compiled and that it would probably take Amie just about as much time to get the Message Board back up.

Carl Edwards didn’t let his short day and thirty-ninth place finish in the Whelen Modified Tour race interfere with winning the Busch Series 200 on Saturday. Edwards was doing triple duty. Carl wrapped up the weekend with a runner-up finish in the LENOX Industrial Tools 300 Sunday.

One person I spoke to on the Ferry said that he had met Jeff Fuller this weekend. He told me that Jeff seemed no worse for the wear from his Busch Series accident a few weeks back. Jeff apparently told him, in typical Fuller fashion, “The accident hasn’t affected my drinking program.” We need more guys like that.

Shortly after we departed the Magic Mile, my understanding is that, officials declared Blewett the winner. The trophy was taken from Civali. Scant information got up on the Message Forum and that’s why my cell phone started to ring like crazy. It is a shame that the Blewett family team didn’t get to celebrate the win in victory lane.

The win will go a long way toward securing John’s fourth Lincoln Electric / Merriam-Graves NHIS track championship. Lincoln Electric & Merriam-Graves are the sponsors for both the Whelen Modified Tour and the Busch East Series driver’s track championships at Loudon. The two $10,000 cash awards are split between the top three competitors in each division based on NASCAR points each season at NHIS.

James Civali will have his day in the sun. The kid ran well up front with the big boys, got his car in position to win when it was time and behaved better than most of the veterans with which he was racing. I know the King team will probably feel sore over this for a while. They thought they had gotten Civali and their car owner, Don King, both their first Tour wins and had a near flawless performance with a brand new racecar.

I mentioned that officials would have to sort out the video earlier. I do not know whether this race will be broadcast. However, this race was shown over NEXTEL Vision and NASCAR may very well have this edited for broadcast. As I mentioned earlier, that amount of caution laps would not be acceptable for a televised race.

Attaboy awards this week for several competitors, Ronnie Silk for a top-ten finish. Alex Hoag and Ron Yuhas earned top-fifteen finishes. I know a lot of cautions aided this but congratulations to Jake Marosz for finishing on the lead lap. Big props to the #0 & #47 teams as they repaired their cars that were damaged Thursday to rebound and also finish on the lead lap.

We’re off the Waterford Speedbowl for 150 laps there this weekend. Shopgirl will be back at her computer and we hope that more of our online friends will attend the race this week. We leave behind memories of shuttle vans, the national media and superstars both naughty and nice and head towards a track where the Tour Modified competitors are the stars. Thanks for enduring such a long column.