Racetrack officials imported pavement all the way from Trinidad and placed it around the turns at the New Hampshire International Speedway this spring. The hope was, in part, to create a track resistant to rising in hot temperatures, thus eliminating one of NHIS’s several notable problems. Then, folks at NHIS rolled out the red carpet — or at least the new, black pavement — for the five Winston Cup and Busch Series racers who accepted the invitation to test their cars on the track. Yesterday [June 30th], the selection of racers sped along the resurfaced speedway and, after zipping through a morning of test runs, issued a verdict on the track, a verdict much more mundane than the foreign-imported surface on which they drove. ”The track itself is the same track,” Ricky Craven said. ”There’s really not that much difference.” Among the five drivers — #32-Ricky Craven, #37-Derrike Cope, #77-Dave Blaney, #20-Tony Stewart and #24-Jeff Gordon — reasons for accepting invitations to NHIS varied. Cope wanted to experiment with two car models [Chevy/Pontiac] and decide on which he preferred. Craven wanted to improve his team’s short-track program. Gordon aimed to make amends for his two disappointing races here last year. But the drivers also were valued for their responses to the track, and taken together, their input could be grouped into something of an NHIS State of the Union. In short, the feedback sounded a lot like last year’s, with a lot of recycled observations: The track is flat, challenging, and, at times, problematic. ”To me, this is one of the trickiest tracks on the circuit, it really is,” Gordon said. ”It’s very flat and has a tight radius, and if you’re not comfortable, you’re not going to go fast.” All four drivers who spoke with the media yesterday (Stewart chose not to) said the track was slippery in the morning but improved considerably following a few test runs.( Boston Globe )(7-1-2003)
