Today, SMI and the city of Las Vegas announced some big changes in the 2018 NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series schedule. It was announced that a second Las Vegas race weekend will be added in 2018 — dropping New Hampshire down to one race weekend in 2018, the July non-chase race. I’ve seen a plethora of different opinions from local race fans and enthusiasts here in New England, both positive and negative. I feel that it’s important to look at the factors that led to this decision, starting from the beginning.
New Hampshire Motor Speedway (formerly New Hampshire International Speedway) was built in June 1990, hosting it’s first NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series (formerly Winston Cup Series) race in July of 1993. In 1996, the second “Chase” race was added onto the NASCAR schedule and up until the announcement today about the ’18 season, NHMS has held both races every season.
Compared to other tricky tracks such as Daytona, Talladega, Martinsville and others, New Hampshire isn’t viewed as a very competitive raceway. Drivers are more than often riding around in single file around the paved oval — the calculated track distance is just over one mile. Drivers are frequently lapping cars at the rear of the field over and over again and in comparison to races like Daytona and Talladega, watching a race at New Hampshire can be compared to watching paint dry hoping that something interesting or exciting will eventually happen to spice things up.
New Hampshire’s races may not be all that exciting, but the New England fans absolutely love it. Every race at NHMS features a melting pot of different people from a variety of different places. The track attracts many fans from our northern neighbor Canada, and more specifically, from the Quebec region. The Canadian Anthem is played proudly before races and Canada’s flag is also displayed at the track. Fans come from far and wide — fans from Vermont, Connecticut and even New York, flock to the area during race weekend. The area itself is beautiful, tucked in the quiet town of Loudon, not far from the neighboring Lake Winnipesaukee. The question buzzing around local stores and businesses in the month prior to both races is “Who’s going to the race?”, “Who’s bringing the beer?” and “Who’s camping?”.
From my general consensus of being a NH race enthusiast since my early childhood years, the September race is the preferred race to many. Many fans opt out of the July race due to the heat and prefer the September race due to the cooler temperatures. I remember back to the July race just two summers ago in 2015 — My friends and I had camped out for the weekend at a nearby campground. All weekend long, the track was plagued with rainy weather. The Sprint Cup race came along on Sunday and everything had changed. The sun beamed down in extreme fashion with absolutely no shade or clouds in sight. It was nearly 95 degrees with about 1000% humidity, it seemed. You could get comfortable for maybe ten minutes and then immediately feel suffocated by the heat. Many people went to the bathroom area desperate to cool down and remain hydrated, going to the bathroom to simply splash water on their body. It seemed as though more fans were underneath the grandstands trying to cool off than there were in the grandstands watching the race. Come 2018, fans will no longer have the choice to opt out of the July race and will be left with few other options — the closest racetracks to NHMS are Dover (fall Chase race) and Watkins Glen (no Chase race), both of which are about a 7 hour drive from the track.
Why was this decision made? As I stated earlier, New Hampshire has never been viewed as a highly competitive track. Track attendance levels and TV ratings have been dropping for years. In 2012, SMI attempted to boost the fan and driver experience by installing lights at the racetrack. This would have changed things up a bit and would have undoubtedly brought more visitors to the track. This plan never panned out and here we are today. Does this decision surprise me? Not necessarily. But, this news does hurt my soul a tiny bit. I’ve always been a die hard New England race fan and proud of it. I feel like I (and others, too) have the right to be selfish and not want this race to be taken away from us and the greater New England community as we have been enjoying these two events for over twenty years. Tradition is tradition and regardless of whether this decision is right or wrong for the sport of NASCAR, getting used to change is difficult.
This switch-up does make sense in terms of fan attendance, TV ratings and competitiveness. The capacity at Las Vegas is listed at over 110,000, whereas at New Hampshire, the capacity doesn’t reach 90,000. With the introduction of a second race, and even bigger, a Chase race, fans will be flocking to the racetrack from far and wide to be a part of that inaugural Chase race. In terms of the racing schedule, I just don’t understand how Las Vegas fits. The race slot sits between races at Chicago and Dover, both of which lie closer to the East coast. It would be much easier for both drivers and teams if the Chase schedule was situated so all 3 Western Chase races were back to back — Texas, Phoenix and Las Vegas. The addition of a random West coast race weekend will make for more travel mileage for all drivers, teams and companies that travel with the sport. I feel as though this will take away valuable time that is most needed during the Chase. I’m interested to see if the schedule gets changed up a bit to accommodate this West coast race.
In the grand scheme of things, this change-up in scheduling will positively effect attendance, TV ratings and the competitiveness during The Chase. This decision will force all New Hampshire race fans to come together every summer and make the July race a spectacular event so that NHMS doesn’t soon become a lingering memory for the Monster Energy Cup Series like those of Hickory and North Wilkesboro have become in the past — just old candles burned out by the wind.
