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Celebrate the holidays and the New Year by giving the gift of speed from New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Make "The Magic Mile" your one-stop shopping destination with tickets to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LENOX Industrial Tools 301 or SYLVANIA 300 and a Ride-Along with the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

Greg Zipadelli, who won two Cup Series championship and 34 races in 13 years at Joe Gibbs Racing, in the last 48 hours negotiated a release from his JGR contract that allows him to join Stewart-Haas Racing as its competition director, a role that will include working as Danica Patrick's crew chief in her Sprint Cup debut, the 2012 Daytona 500.

Zipadelli comes to SHR from Joe Gibbs Racing where he served as crew chief for the No. 20 team since 1999. It's where the 44-year-old from Berlin, Conn., began a 10-year tenure with Tony Stewart, the co-owner of SHR along with Gene Haas, founder of Haas Automation.

NASCAR announced today the 2012 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule that will feature traditional dates at some of the premier short tracks and speedways in the northeast.

In its 28th season of competition, the Whelen Modified Tour will see the 14-race slate spread across seven tracks in four states. New to the schedule in 2012 will be a return to Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl.

A Virginia-born driver with a need to prove himself after losing the championship on NASCAR's premier division two seasons ago. A Virginia-born crew chief with a need to prove himself after getting fired despite winning the title this past year. In some ways, Denny Hamlin and Darian Grubb seemed made for one another.

That partnership was formalized Friday, when Joe Gibbs Racing announced that Grubb would lead Hamlin's No. 11 team beginning next season.

David Ragan spent Sunday flying home from the Snowball Derby, a prestigious late model race held annually in Pensacola, Fla., and his focus during the trip was a right-rear hub assembly that had broken down and knocked his car out of the event. Then he landed in Charlotte, flipped on his mobile telephone -- and suddenly realized he had much more pressing concerns.

"We land in Charlotte, and Twitter is blowing up, and we see reports that something is going to happen with the 22 program the following day," Ragan said.

Christmas came early for 47 New England area organizations today, as New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the N.H. Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities distributed more than $150,000 to aid local children in need. 

“Today was my Christmas,” said Cheryl LaPrade, director of the N.H. Chapter of SCC. “I am really excited that we could raise as much money as we did and that will impact so many children throughout the region. It was so special to start the holiday season by helping these organizations achieve their mission.”

He stayed up until the wee hours of the morning playing craps. He joked about his waistline and his uncanny ability to pick up women. He pocketed check after check after check, the next almost always worth more than the previous one, and then spent a lot of that cash by bringing all 150 employees of Stewart-Haas Racing to Sprint Cup Champion's Week, and throwing a blowout after-party for everyone who was invited to Friday night's awards ceremony at Wynn Las Vegas.

Tony Stewart’s on a roll. And that’s a good feeling when you’re in Las Vegas.

Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Ryan Newman won Wednesday’s “This Ain’t the Newlywed Game,” a riff on the television original hosted by Bob Eubanks. Stewart and Newman edged the team of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch by most accurately recalling the estimated attendance of March’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Richard Childress Racing has named Drew Blickensderfer as the crew chief for the No. 31 team with driver Jeff Burton for the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season.

Luke Lambert, interim crew chief during the latter part of the 2011 season for the No. 31 team, will assume a yet-to-be announced new position at RCR.

Few people expected Brad Keselowski and the Penske Racing No. 2 team to win multiple races this year.

Fewer still thought the 27-year-old had a shot at qualifying for NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup.

And how many could have imagined that Keselowski would finish fifth – ahead of such stalwarts as five-time series champion Jimmie Johnson and four-timer Jeff Gordon?

Steve Addington, who helped guide Penske Racing driver Kurt Busch into NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup in 2010 and 2011, has parted ways with the team, according to Penske officials.

“Steve Addington is no longer with our organization. We appreciate the successes we experienced together and wish him the best in his future endeavors," the team said in a statement issued Tuesday.

Carl Edwards kept waiting for Tony Stewart to make a mistake.

Though Stewart had won four of nine Chase races and kept putting pressure on the points leader, on and off the track, Edwards believed that Stewart would finally crack, and that he, and not Stewart, would finally walk away with the Sprint Cup championship.

Neither Brad Keselowski nor NASCAR would confirm nor deny an Associated Press report Keselowski has been fined $25,000 for critical comments he made about NASCAR’s switch to fuel injection.

NASCAR has fined drivers the last two years for comments that it believes hurts the credibility of the sport. It hasn’t announced the fines, but drivers have confirmed they were fined.

It was here at Phoenix International Raceway last season where Jimmie Johnson somehow saved his run of championships, stretching a fuel run to the finish and keeping close enough to Denny Hamlin that he could overtake him in the finale the next week. The five-time champion needed an ever bigger miracle Sunday, as his unprecedented streak of five consecutive titles neared its last gasp.

He didn't get it. Johnson finished a mediocre 14th on what had traditionally been one of his better tracks, and fell 68 points behind leader Carl Edwards with only next week's season-ender at Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining.

Stock cars,vintage open-wheel cars, dragsters and motorcycles all have a spot in the history books when it comes to racing in the Northeast, and now, all of these forms of motorsports will be featured in the new state-of-the-art Northeast Motorsports Museum at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The Racing History Preservation Group and “The Magic Mile” announced the beginning of fund raising efforts to create a 20,000-square-foot motorsports museum on Rt. 106 in Loudon, N.H. The announcement was made by Jerry Gappens, executive vice president and general manager of the speedway, RHPG president Dick Berggren, New England fan favorite and former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Ricky Craven.

The Loudon Road Race Series wrapped up its 2011 season this past weekend at a banquet in Manchester, N.H. The two-wheeled stars celebrated their exciting year, which included 27,609 laps of racing on New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s 1.6-mile road course.

Rick Doucette was once again the star of the event. The Sandown, N.H. native captured seven championships in six different divisions including the prestigious NHMS Track Champion award for the second consecutive year.

Is there any question the final two contenders in the 2011 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup would be Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards?  Not at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

What started out as a 12 man race has now become a two man show featuring Edwards and Stewart. Both have different styles of driving, different teams and a different history in the sport.  Edwards is chasing his first title, but Stewart is looking to sit right where he did in 2005, at the head table.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway joined several Granite State dignitaries today in opening up a new connecter road for the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.

The new exit connects New Hampshire’s Everett Turnpike directly to the airport and helps with the traffic flow of 26,000 vehicles that use the airport each day.  

The next-to-last landscape upon which Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart will wrestle for stock car supremacy has been a part of NASCAR's top series for almost a quarter-century, but that means almost nothing in the context of this weekend's racing.

Phoenix International Raceway, which had been one of International Speedway Corp.'s most neglected tracks for years, got a major upgrade this year.

Tony Stewart backed up his smack talk with a convincing victory in Sunday's AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, the eighth race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

With his fourth victory in the Chase and the 43rd of his career, Stewart put a dent in runner-up Carl Edwards' series lead, scoring maximum points (48) to trim Edwards' advantage from eight to three points with two races left in the season.

Until Friday, all we knew about Danica Patrick's 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule with Stewart-Haas Racing was the GoDaddy girl would start her Cup career with the Daytona 500.

Now we know the rest of it. Almost.

In addition to her full-time Nationwide Series schedule with JR Motorsports, Patrick will run Cup races at Daytona, Darlington, Bristol (the night race), Atlanta, Chicagoland, Dover (fall race), Texas (fall race) and Phoenix (fall race).

Eddie Gossage spent Sunday afternoon in a television studio at Texas Motor Speedway, publicizing his upcoming race weekend in satellite interviews with local stations across Texas and Oklahoma. He kept one eye on a TV off in the corner, where the event at Martinsville Speedway was wrapping up. The Texas track president finished his interviews just in time to see Tony Stewart overtake Jimmie Johnson for the victory, and issue his now-famous challenge to points leader Carl Edwards -- the latter a large chunk of promotional manna that had fallen right into Gossage's lap.

Championship NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick and his wife are recovering at home in Charlotte after each suffered minor injuries Monday night when the small jet carrying them to Key West, Fla., lost its brakes and crash landed at the island's airport.

Officials on the scene told the Associated Press that the Gulfstream 150 ran off the runway at Key West International Airport Monday at 7:45 p.m., and that Rick and Linda Hendrick, as well as a pilot and co-pilot, were taken to Lower Keys Medical Center.

About the only thing Brian Vickers regrets about his wild race at Martinsville Speedway Sunday is that his retaliation against Matt Kenseth didn’t cause more damage to Kenseth’s car and his championship hopes.

Vickers is not all that concerned that his retaliation against Kenseth impacted the finish of the race. He just wishes Kenseth had not already been running 30th when he chose to take him out.

Experience the same thrills that Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch feel as they cross the Granite Stripe behind the wheel of a NASCAR stock car at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend.

On Saturday and Sunday, The Racing School will offer several programs for those fans with the need for speed.

Chad Knaus told driver Jimmie Johnson to intentionally damage the back end of his race car if the No. 48 team won Sunday's race at Talladega Superspeedway, the crew chief acknowledged Wednesday.

Knaus admitted giving the five-time NASCAR champion the pre-race instructions in order to "cover our bases" in case 500 miles of bump-drafting knocked the car beyond NASCAR's strict tolerances.

When it came right down to it, Sunday's Good Sam Club 500 at Talladega Superspeedway was decided by a decidedly different set of opinions on how the race should be approached.

While some teams were intent on merely surviving and obviously drove as conservatively as possible -- and that's relatively speaking on a 2.66-mile oval where speeds frequently approach 200 miles per hour -- others were determined to run up front from the drop of the green flag.

Cool weather and colorful leaves mean that fall in New England has finally arrived, but it also means there are only a few weeks left of on-track activity at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  This weekend, the Boston BMW Club and Stevens Advanced Driving School rev up their engines at “The Magic Mile.”

The White Mountain Chapter of Boston’s BMW Club will kick start its weekend today through Sunday with the End of Summer Driving School.  Perfect for all drivers, the driving programs offer students the chance to learn all about how their car performs in real life situations while in a safe, enclosed environment. 

The concept behind "The Huge Facebook Deal Share" is simple.  You sign up, you get all your friends to sign up and if we get 1,000 to sign up for the deal by New Year's Eve 2011, everyone gets 20% off ticket purchases of four or more.

Sprint Cup drivers will have a new restrictor plate and a new maximum temperature at which they can run their engines at Talladega this weekend, but whether that impacts the two-car tandem draft remains to be seen.

While NASCAR officials have not said so publicly, they appear to want to see less of the two-car hookups that were prevalent in restrictor-plate races at Daytona and Talladega earlier this year.

Kasey Kahne woke up Monday thinking about Dan Wheldon and the wrenching pain felt by the late two-time Indianapolis 500 champion's family and friends.

Kahne didn't spend a moment thinking that it could have been him — even though the NASCAR driver seriously had considered entering the Izod IndyCar Series season finale in which Wheldon died in Sunday's 15-car accident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Dan Wheldon still wanted it. But he’d come to realize that he didn’t need it. At least not like before.

A season on the periphery of the Izod IndyCar Series - a concept that would have maddened him when he came to the United States as an ambitious Brit seeking his fortune in 1999 - had been resoundingly pleasing to the 33-year-old after he passed on several opportunities for full-time work he considered lacking.

They negotiate 12 turns while going 150 mph on just two-wheels, and, this weekend, the riders of the Loudon Road Race Series will wrap up their 2011 season at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. With a picture perfect weather forecast predicted for both Saturday and Sunday, Loudon’s motorcycle stars are revved up for “The Magic Mile’s” fastest finale. 

When the series visited NHMS in September, Dunbarton, N.H. native Scott Greenwood finally broke through to grab his first Middle Weight Grand Prix victory of the seven race season.

The drivers in the Amsoil NELCAR Legends Tour are making the trip to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend for the final race of the 2011 season. Mathew Bourgoine, driver of the No. 38 legend car, has had an amazing sophomore season with 11 top-three finishes, including two wins. His first career legend win came at Unity Raceway; his second win was a photo finish as he edged the 56 car of Evan Beaulieu at BRMS.

For the second consecutive year, New Hampshire Motor Speedway is offering area residents a low-cost option for protecting their motorcycles, boats, sports cars and Jet Skis from the harsh New England winter.

Beginning Tuesday, Nov. 1, “The Magic Mile” will have storage options in the track’s infield garages for those who need a winter home for their summer toys.  A boat, sports car, motorcycle or Jet Ski can be stored in a 10-by-28 foot space with a height limit of seven feet for just $100 a month, a true value when compared to other storage options.

BARRE, Vt. – Brian Hoar put family first on Sunday at Thunder Road International Speedbowl, and by doing so family put him first.

Hoar won the first and third segments, holding off track champion and part-time RPM Motorsports teammate Nick Sweet to win the 49 annual People's United Bank Milk Bowl. The victory was Hoar's third career Milk Bowl victory and capped a season in which he won a record eighth career ACT Late Model championship.

He didn't take the lead in the Sprint Cup standings, didn't even move into second, but he didn't need to. Winning at Kansas Speedway in such dominating fashion was plenty good enough. And in the end, it was one of those afternoons that evoked the feeling of inevitability that's loomed over NASCAR's premier series for much of the past five years, one that grew stronger and stronger with each circuit the No. 48 car made around the track.

Jimmie Johnson is back. As if he ever left.

I don't know how many of you have ever driven a car without power steering. It's not easy on the highway, much less at 150 miles per hour around a high-banked oval like Dover International Speedway. I got to know firsthand what that is like this past weekend. If Dover isn't the hardest track on equipment, it's right at the top. It places a lot of stress on several areas of the car and, unfortunately, we ran into a little back luck this past weekend when our power steering belt was knocked off halfway through the race.

Sprint Cup drivers typically don’t look forward to tracks being repaved because their notes from past races become meaningless, leaving them less comfortable on a track that typically has more grip but also can be slick thanks to the new asphalt.

So while they were looking forward to testing Tuesday and Wednesday at the newly repaved and reconfigured Phoenix International Raceway,

On Tuesday, Oct. 4, Feed The Children, in partnership with Speedway Children’s Charities and Speedway Children’s Charities New Hampshire Motor Speedway Chapter, will deliver two truckloads of food and essentials to Blessed Sacrament Church: St. Anthony Food Pantry. The distribution will take place at 14 Elm Street in Manchester beginning at 4 p.m.  The event is part of a nationwide effort by Feed The Children and Speedway Children’s Charities to help families in need.

At speeds of up to 140 mph, experience the same thrills that Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon felt during last weekend’s SYLVANIA 300 by driving a stock car around New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Beginning today through Sunday, the Richard Petty Driving Experience will offer several programs to fulfill every race fans need for speed.

NASCAR will unveil the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule via its social/digital channels on today, Sept. 28, at noon ET.

NASCAR.COM will first unveil next year’s schedule on its homepage, with a question-and-answer Twitter chat session to follow involving NASCAR (@NASCAR) and Senior V.P. of Racing Operations Steve O’Donnell (@odsteve). Fans, media, teams and tracks are encouraged to participate throughout the one-hour interactive Twitter forum.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour made a return to the New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the Sylvania 300 Nascar Sprint Cup Series event.  This race was huge not only because it had only the best of the best in New England in this invitational only event, but also because it marked a year since the first event for Legends Cars at "The Magic Mile."

The drama, excitement and anticipation of championship racing has arrived at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The SYLVANIA 300 green flag will wave at 2 p.m., but there is plenty of action before on-track activities get started.

The NELCAR Legends Tour was up bright and early to take on the tricky .25-mile oval. 

Country superstar duo Montgomery Gentry launch pre-race ceremonies with a concert beginning at 12:10 p.m. The group will perform hit songs including, “My Town,” “Hell Yeah," “Something to be Proud Of,” “Lucky Man” and “Back When I Knew it All.”

Eddie MacDonald captured his second American-Canadian Tour Invitational checkered flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this evening in the action-packed 50-lap race.

MacDonald is no stranger to running well at “The Magic Mile.” The Rowley, Mass. native boasts five top-five and 12 top-ten finishing positions in both the American-Canadian Tour and the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East.    

“We weren’t totally happy with the car during practice today,” said MacDonald. “The guys did an awesome job getting the car ready and in the end I’m just really happy to be in victory lane.    

Ron Silk bump drafted to the end and grabbed his points lead back after winning the New Hampshire 100 at this afternoon.

Silk started from the pole position and went bumper-to-bumper with all of the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour regulars to capture his third victory of the 2011 season and his second “Magic Mile” checkered flag.

Brett Moffitt finally scored his first New Hampshire Motor Speedway win today during the rain shortened New Hampshire 125 event.

This was Moffitts third win of the season and seventh in his NASCAR K&N Pro Series East career.  He now sits just 21 points unofficially behind Max Gresham in the championship standings.

The driver of the No. 00 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota has finished as the race runner-up the last two trips to Loudon and has four top-five efforts in five career K&N Pro Series East events at NHMS.

You know the ticket is big when it has to be bolted to the side of the grandstands.  New Hampshire Motor Speedway made it big with a Guinness Book World Record for the largest scratch ticket ever made.  The N.H. Lottery unveiled the gigantic instant ticket during last night’s FanFest.  

The enormous scratch ticket measured a whopping 36-feet and 2-inches-tall by 18-feet and 8 inches-wide and was officially measured by Phillip Robertson of Guinness Book of World Records.  It beat the previous record held in Australia.

Darrell Wallace Jr., driver of the No. 6 U.S. Army Toyota set a new track record in the K&N Pro Series at New Hampshire Motor Speedway at a speed of 127.602 mph, capturing the pole position for tomorrow’s New Hampshire 125.

“It was a pretty stout day for the No. 6 team,” said Wallace. “We ended up winning practice and now to sit on the pole is awesome. I can’t say enough about the U.S. Army team and Revolution Racing. This is my Dover car so I just have to keep it in one piece and take it to the next race.”

The drama, excitement and anticipation of championship racing heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for this weekend’s SYLVANIA 300 activities.

The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup has begun and several questions are at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Will Tony Stewart build on his momentum from Chicagoland and take two straight wins?  Can Kurt and Kyle Busch resurrect their dominating ways at “The Magic Mile”?  Is Jimmie Johnson going to score another NHMS win? 

By the time the green flag drops on a race this weekend at NHMS, the weatherman will claim that autumn has started (officially on Sept. 23).

Yet, in New England, we've come to assume the weatherman isn't always right and we won't be listening to him this weekend.  NASCAR's in town and our summer isn't over yet!

It’s safe to say Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch will never be best friends, and fans can bet the rivalry between the two hardcore racers will be in full force this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Harvick and Busch will duel once again at “The Magic Mile” during the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series F.W. Webb 175 on Saturday and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series SYLVANIA 300 on Sunday.

The fuel gauges were on empty when the checkered flag waved at Chicagoland Speedway this afternoon.  Tony Stewart coasted where he could and nursed his car to an impressive win kicking off the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. 

Now, everyone must refuel rapidly and get ready for the SYLVANIA 300.

The exciting Chase weekend begins on Thursday with both the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour practice and qualifying.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour was at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway for what is one of the biggest races on the Tour.  50 laps and $400 to win on the Pro All Stars Series PASS 400 weekend, it was set to be a great race as it always is.  With drivers from as far away as New Jersey, the 23 car field took to the track knowing there was just two races remaining and time was running out to make a statement before the 2011 season is over.

Who says second place is the first loser?

For the first time since the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup began in 2004 New Hampshire Motor Speedway will not be the first stop on the 10 race playoff schedule, but it doesn’t mean that the 2011 SYLVANIA 300 is any less important.

One of NASCAR's best is among those giving time and attention to the New Hampshire Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities during the SYLVANIA 300 race weekend, but there are many ways for fans to help New England children in need throughout the event.

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, feel the same thrill that you’re favorite NASCAR driver feels as you drive your own car around “The Magic Mile” for three laps during the SCC Laps for Charity event.

If you are a superstitious person, and I know many of you are, then you have to start keeping a close eye on Carl Edwards.

You may have seen he was in New Hampshire this week, helping us to hype the upcoming SYLVANIA 300 on Sunday, Sept. 25. Edwards paid a visit to Portsmouth, N.H. for a little fun around the bay. I've always liked the guy. He's charming, athletic, has a great sense of humor and you can tell the man enjoys fans. That's important to me.

There was no back flipping for this win, but Carl Edwards did get a New England style victory as he trapped over a dozen lobsters today in Portsmouth, N.H. It was good practice for Edwards, who hopes to hoist Loudon the Lobster in victory lane after the SYLVANIA 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sept. 25.

As NASCAR’s best prepare to invade “The Magic Mile,” the driver of the No. 99 Aflac Ford joined local media members and fans at Geno’s Chowder House in Portsmouth,

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour returned to the Unity Raceway for the final time of the 2011 season this past weekend.  With many of the newcomers in the tour who run very well at the rough track, they were going to do all they could to make their mark in the final race at Unity.  For the series veterans however, they were just as competitive and ready for victory as well.

Sparks and sheet metal flew on a night where the record for cautions was tied at Richmond International Raceway. Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch went at one another in the latest edition of their running feud. Dale Earnhardt Jr. limped around the short track in a busted-up race car, trying to salvage his position in the Chase. Drivers wrecked one another and sought retribution in a wild, dramatic event that concluded the Sprint Cup tour's regular season.

Starting today and running through the SYLVANIA 300 race weekend, NHMS will offer daily giveaways on Facebook.  In honor of the two o’clock start time for the Sept. 25 Chase race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, SYLVANIA’s Two O’Clock Break will be offered each day at 2 p.m. to help our fans take their mental, mid-afternoon break.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to experience a chaotic day as a NASCAR pit road reporter? The New Hampshire Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities is now hosting an online auction, giving one lucky fan the opportunity to spend the entire race with ESPN reporter Jamie Little during the SYLVANIA 300 on Sunday, Sept. 25.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, NASCAR announced today a special in-race tribute to take place on Saturday, Sept. 10 during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway. Fans attending the event, ABC-TV and MRN Radio broadcasters announcing the race, and the track announcer will all go quiet for a three-lap moment of silence from laps 9 through 11 at the .75-mile oval.

NASCAR will give the AdvoCare 500 another go Tuesday.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Lee produced heavy rain and spawned tornadoes around the Atlanta metropolitan area on Monday but the weather should yield in time for Tuesday's 11 a.m. Sprint Cup Series race (ESPN).

The Middleweight Grand Prix Dash for the Cash event on Saturday afternoon offered some of the fastest racing on two-wheels filled with action-packed excitement. 

Scott Greenwood, rider of the Argo Cycles/Dunlop Tires bike managed to get out front early with a jump off the line, leading the pack with Woodcraft/Penguin Racing School’s Eric Wood in a close second. 

When the riders raced into turn 1, Wood made a strong move to steal the lead. 

When it comes to competing in the legend car international racing, INEX is the sanctioning body who sets all the rules, specifications, and guidelines for the legend cars.

NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour regulars beware, Ryan "Rocketman" Newman will once again tackle New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the New Hampshire 100 on Saturday, Sept. 24.

Newman will make his third modified start of the 2011 season and his seventh career start at "The Magic Mile." This time it will be behind the wheel of the No. 77 (not his usual No.7) Aggressive Hydraulics/ Menards Chevrolet led by crew chief Steve Lindstrum.

During the SYLVANIA 300 weekend, New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Tommy Baldwin Racing are offering the ultimate modified fan ticket package for just $71.

The exciting package will include a grandstand ticket for Sept. 25's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' SYLVANIA 300, as well as a ticket for the Sept. 24 triple header. It will also include a 2011 NASCAR Hall of Fame yearbook and a 2012 inductee photo card rack from the Hall of Fame.

Two races remain before the complete 12-driver Chase field is set, seedings and all.

Here's what we know: Five drivers have clinched a Chase spot in some fashion. Kyle Busch, five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards have locked up a top-10 spot. Kevin Harvick, on the strength of three 2011 victories, has clinched at least a wild card spot -- and will likely cement a top-10 berth in Sunday night's AdvoCare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

After the second/final round of green-flag pit stops in the Indy Grand Prix of Sonoma, it was apparent that Will Power would have to make a major mistake to relinquish the lead in the 75-lap race at Infineon Raceway.

Fortunately for Team Penske, Helio Castroneves and Ryan Briscoe were running second and third if that opportunity arose. Power maintained control as he had throughout, which made clearer the roles of his teammates – remain in front of IZOD IndyCar Series championship points leader Dario Franchitti of Target Chip Ganassi Racing.

Brad Keselowski's phoenix-like rise from the ashes continued Saturday, with an improbable victory in the Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway -- his third win of the season and his second since breaking his left ankle Aug. 3 in a crash during testing at Road Atlanta.

Keselowski grabbed the lead on a restart with 80 laps left in the 500-lap Sprint Cup race and held on to win for the fourth time in his career. The victory all but assured Keselowski of at least a wild-card position in the upcoming Chase.

Pointing both middle fingers into the air at officials earlier this month at New Hampshire Motor Speedway will cost Will Power $30,000 -- or the equivalent in public appearances on behalf of the Izod IndyCar Series.

Power said he'll choose to do the work, although he doesn't know how many days that will entail.

"It's probably a pretty obvious choice," he said Thursday. "Thirty thousand is a lot of money."

Danica Patrick might not even be a race car driver today, let alone have the opportunity to race in NASCAR full time in 2012, had Brooke Patrick not stepped away from the family go-kart nearly 20 years ago.

On Thursday, Patrick confirmed plans to take the next step in her career -- one which began in the Midwest, then to England as a teenager, and then a triumphant return to racing's heartland and the Indianapolis 500.

INDYCAR announced that the top three finishing positions of the Aug. 14 MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway were upheld during a protest hearing Aug. 23 in Indianapolis.

The hearing was conducted by a panel consisting of Jerry Gappens, Rollie Helmling and Jeff Stoops. As Senior Official and pursuant to IZOD IndyCar Series Rule 12.4, INDYCAR President of Competition and Operations Brian Barnhart elected to have a panel resolve the protests.

IndyCar drivers Scott Dixon, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Oriol Servia will wait one more day to see how a three-member panel rules on the protest involving last week's finish at New Hampshire.

All three drivers attended Tuesday's hearing in Indianapolis. Series spokeswoman Amy Konrath says the panel is meeting Tuesday afternoon and should announce a decision Wednesday morning.

Oriol Servia and his Newman/Haas Racing team believe they won the controversial Izod IndyCar Series race Aug. 14 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Today they get the chance to prove it.

Newman/Haas and Ganassi Racing will present their cases for the top two finishing positions in an official hearing today at the Downtown office of law firm Ice Miller. Ice Miller represents Indianapolis \ Motor Speedway Corp., including IndyCar.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour raced back into the Granite State this past weekend at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway for another exciting race on the quarter-mile.  With its tight turns and hard braking, it is without a doubt one of the most challenging tracks for the local drivers.

 With 20 cars on the track things will get crowded in a hurry.  Practice times once again determined the starting line up for the heat races and there were a few familiar faces at the front of the field.

The Loudon Road Race Series will return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the fifth time this year with over 20 different events scheduled throughout the weekend.

At speeds of up to 175 mph, the local two-wheeled stars will tackle the tricky 12-turn, “Magic Mile” road course eyeing the series championship.

The last time LRRS raced at NHMS was the midway point of the 2011 season. Shane Narbonne led the way, capturing his third Middleweight Dash for Cash event.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan driver Pippa Mann has been diagnosed with an end-plate fracture of the C7 vertebra as a result of an Aug. 13 practice crash for the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The injury was not apparent on the initial X-rays and was discovered during a follow-up MRI in Indianapolis.

The injury is not expected to keep Mann from making her next scheduled IZOD IndyCar Series start Oct. 2 at the Kentucky Indy 300.

Brian Barnhart, INDYCAR’s President of Competition and Operations, named Jerry Gappens, Rollie Helmling and Jeff Stoops to serve as the three-person panel that will hear the protests regarding the results of the IZOD IndyCar Series  MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The protest hearing will take place Aug. 23 in Indianapolis, and the proceedings will be closed to the public and media.

Here’s an idea I’d like to try: Instead of reverting back to the order as it was at the end of the 215th lap Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, let’s revert back to the 118th lap, which just so happens to be the last lap I led.

Qualifying was great for us, we started on the pole after 2 of the most intense laps ive ever done. At times we'd been leading by as much as 12 seconds, by lap 65 had put all but the top 12 a lap down, it's safe to safe the nikon car was hooked up and the driver was feeling good about things!

Marcos Ambrose's happiness bubbled over Monday afternoon to the point where he began vigorously chasing various employees of Richard Petty Motorsports and attempting to spray them with a bit of the bubbly in Victory Lane at Watkins Glen International.

For a driver and company whose intertwined futures were so uncertain just one year ago, it was indeed a day to call for champagne all the way around.

Ryan Hunter-Reay won the MoveThatBock.com INDY 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway today, after rain shortened the controversial race by five laps.   

Behind the wheel of his No. 28 Team DHL/Circle K/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car for Andretti Autosport, Hunter-Reay led 71 laps on his way to his first IZOD IndyCar Series race in 2011.

Much has changed at then-New Hampshire International Speedway since Tony Stewart put team owner John Menard’s car in Victory Lane in 1998 – the last IndyCar race at the oval.

Most notably is the addition of progressive banking in the turns, which is probably the biggest of New Hampshire’s many “Hot Spots."

Mike Stefanik scored a record 71^st NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory, by capturing the Granite State Classic checkered flag at New Hampshire Motor Speedway today.

The driver of the No. 16 Diversified Metals/R.B. Enterprises Pontiac has six “Magic Mile” wins, 22 top-fives and 28 top-10 finishes in the mighty Whelen Modified Tour.

Firestone Indy Lights Series championship points leader Josef Newgarden captured the pole for tomorrow’s Firestone Indy Lights 100 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Newgarden, who pilots the No. 11 Copart/Score Big/Robo-Pong/SSM for Sam Schmidt Motorsports, zoomed, around “The Magic Mile” for two laps with an aggregated time of 49.4908 seconds, at an average speed of 149.119 mph

Today at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, fans will be treated to a site never before seen in Loudon. Four series, four styles of driving, the IZOD IndyCar Series, Firestone Indy Lights, the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour and the American-Canadian Tour.  All together!

For the first time in track history, these series will all take turns on “The Magic Mile” in the same day. 

Eddie MacDonald will cross the Granite Stripe in the pole position when the green flag drops at the American-Canadian Tour All Star Challenge Saturday.

The 2009 ACT Invitational winner used his NASCAR K&N Pro Series East experience to pull away from the field during his heat race today.

“Experience really helps out here,” said MacDonald.

It only took a matter of minutes before eyebrows were raised during IZOD IndyCar Series testing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Thursday.

Right out of the box, the cars were running in excess of 160 mph. By the time the day was over, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti was one of three drivers to break the 170 mph barrier, topping the speed charts with a fast lap of 21.566 seconds (171.099 mph) around the flat, 1.058-mile oval.

INDYCAR’s most popular driver returned to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the second time, but today it was behind the wheel of an Indy car.  Her inaugural run was promising.

She was 10^th fastest during this morning’s practice session at the 1.058-mile oval, turning a lap time of 22.40 seconds at a speed of 164.669 mph.

Dreyer & Reinbold Racing general manager Larry Curry says Tomas Scheckter's "small learning curve" was the determining factor in offering the veteran IZOD IndyCar Series driver the No. 22 seat for the MoveThatBlock.com Indy 225 this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Scheckter, who has competed for the team on ovals, will fill in for Justin Wilson, who suffered a stable burst fracture of the fifth thoracic vertebra during a single-car practice session incident Aug. 6 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

IZOD IndyCar Series rookie JR Hildebrand kick started his race week early, revving up New England for the MoveThatBlock.com INDY 225 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway this Sunday.

The 23-year-old California native visited the N.H. State House to welcome fans to the Granite State with Governor John Lynch and NHMS executive vice president and general manager Jerry Gappens.

This is guaranteed to be the fastest week in Granite State history. INDYCAR is racing to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for an action-packed weekend during the MoveThatBlock.com INDY® 225. 

The series visited the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Sunday and it was Scott Dixon who led the way during the Honda Indy 200. Passing his teammate Dario Franchitti on lap 61, Dixon never looked back as he captured his first win of the 2011 season.

At first blush, one stretch of the IZOD IndyCar Series schedule stood out to KV Racing Technology-Lotus’ Tom Wurtz.

“Definitely versatile,” he said of the back-to-back-to-back races on an airport circuit, a natural-terrain road course and a short oval.

Wurtz, and other team managers, are charged with the preparation of the cars for the variety pack of events throughout the year and transportation.

When men push machines to their limit in the spirit of competition, there’s an ever-present risk that something can go wrong. In other words, as long as there is automobile racing, there will be crashes.

No cars race faster on a closed oval circuit than the cars of the IZOD IndyCar Series. At some tracks, the drivers are pushing the limits at more than 220 mph. Here at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the IndyCar Series drivers will push their machines near the 200 mph mark in qualifying and race above 180 mph.

It's appropriate that Helio Castroneves' 199th start for Team Penske occurs at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where he's played a role in the team's success: victories in 2000 and 2001 highlighting five podium finishes in eight starts, plus pole starts in 2007 and '08.

Overall, Team Penske has has seven victories in 26 Indy car races at the natural-terrain circuit since 1980 (including 1992-95 when Emerson Fittipaldi and Al Unser Jr. each won two races in a row).  

Ladies start your engines! For the first time ever, a record four women will race side-by-side at New Hampshire Motor Speedway during the MoveThatBlock.com INDY 225 next Sunday. 

INDYCAR’s most popular driver, Danica Patrick will be among four female drivers who will cross the Granite Stripe when the green flag waves at NHMS.

I bet you've never heard of Charlie Kimball. He was born in England and you could say racing was in his blood. He climbed behind the wheel of go karts when he was nine. You know nine year olds and go-karts go together like macaroni and cheese. The kid had skills.

The passion for racing coursing through Charlie's veins triggered a bold decision after graduating high school with high honors.

If you could ask anything of racing's most well-known female face, what would you ask?  Danica Patrick invites fans to come and talk to her during the MoveThatBlock.com INDY 225 next week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  No, seriously she does!  Here's your chance, the door is about to open to a small group of race fans.

"The Magic Mile" is offering fans an exclusive opportunity to get up close and very personal with INDYCAR and NASCAR star Danica Patrick during the Aug. 14, MoveThatBlock.com INDY 225.

The New Hampshire Motor Speedway is offering fans the unique opportunity to get close to the cars and stars of the IZOD IndyCar Series during the MoveThatBlock.com INDY 225 weekend. Starting August 2nd and running through August 11th, fans will have the opportunity to enter daily into the "INDYCAR License and Registration, Please" contest for a chance to win two paddock (garage) passes for the August 14th race.

Maybe you have the need for speed, perhaps going 130 mph is on your weekend to-do-list, or just the idea of lifting tons of product is a top priority. Whether you just want to lift things up and put them down, or break the speed limit, New Hampshire Motor Speedway can fill the need.

Today, the N.H. Good Roads show will offer a fun filled day for the entire family as organizers show off the latest technological innovations in construction equipment.

Action sports star Travis Pastrana crashed on back-to-back "TP Roll" attempts Thursday night in X Games 17 Moto X Best Trick, ending the Pastranathon during its first event.

Pastrana, who was taken off on a stretcher and transported to a hospital for X-rays, broke his right foot and ankle, according to medical officials working with ESPN. He was discharged from the hospital Thursday night. The injury will require surgery at a later date.

The short track sits right next to a cornfield, a combination of Indiana institutions if there ever was one, and in the summertime the tall green stalks reach high above the backstretch wall. If anyone ever had the desire to remake the film Field of Dreams from a NASCAR perspective, the facility now known as Lucas Oil Raceway would provide the perfect setting. You can almost picture it, leaves rustling as the sport's late greats push their way out of that sea of green and toward the race track, eager to get behind the wheel one more time.

There is racing, and then there is racing.

After the race in Toronto earlier this month, I jumped on a plane and headed back home to Scotland for some vacation time – and some racing of a different sort. My buddies and I went sailing. Not just sailing leisurely as we normally do, but racing. Don't get the wrong idea here, though. It was just a local event, not the America’s Cup.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour was back at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway this past weekend for race number fourteen on the schedule.  After a caution filled race last weekend, the Tour was much tamer this weekend.  The goal for everyone was the same though, to unseat Shaun Buffington from the top spot, as he came in undefeated in NHMS Legends competition so far this season.  As the sun set on the tight quarter mile, 20 of the best Legends Car drivers in New England took to the track for some more tight racing.

Two consecutive DNFs, including a public dust-up with three-time IZOD IndyCar Series champion Dario Franchitti at Toronto, played on Will Power’s psyche for 13 days. Or so it appeared.

All of it – even the celebrated spat with Franchitti -- was washed away with the flow of champagne in Victory Circle at City Centre Airport. 

Over 70 teams from nine (9) different states and provinces have entered the American Canadian Tour (ACT) Late Model All-Star Challenge at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH on Friday, August 12 and Saturday, August 13. The event, which has a purse of over $122,000, is part of the IZOD Indycar Series weekend.

Entries have been received from Late Model teams in each of the six New England states, as well as New York and the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

The IZOD IndyCar Series stars may not race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway until Aug. 14, but if you were out and about in the Granite State the past two days, you may have seen one in your neighborhood.

As part of a promotion counting down the days until INDYCAR returns to “The Magic Mile,” local media members had the exciting opportunity to ride shotgun in a two-seat street legal Indy car. They raced through several locations in New Hampshire and even Massachusetts. 

With the curtain closing on the LENOX Industrial Tools 301, it is time to add up the gracious donations raised through the New Hampshire Motor Speedway chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities and so far this year, over $100,000 has been raised.

The money, along with additional fundraisers throughout the remainder of the 2011 season will be distributed at the end of the year to children in need throughout New England.

Former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve, who finished third in the Nationwide Series race at Road America and will return to the Penske Racing seat next month at Montreal, is continuing his quest to find a NASCAR ride.

Villeneuve spent Saturday with the Penske team at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, making the four-hour drive from his Canadian home.

Ryan Newman was walking, or rather driving, the proverbial fine line at a high rate of speed during the final laps of Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

As the race leader, he stood poised to boost his position for the entire season into another stratosphere, virtually locking himself into one of the 12 spots for the upcoming Chase that determines NASCAR's Cup champion.

So, you’re zipping along in heavy traffic and the check engine light comes on and then a bunch of other indicator lights kick in, lighting up the dashboard in a fireworks-like display.

Now you’re NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon and that zipping along is at about 170 miles an hour, in serious want-to-kick-your-butt traffic at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on a speedy Sunday afternoon drive.

Sprint announced today the biggest promotion in its history as the title sponsor of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: the Sprint Summer Showdown presented by HTC EVO 3D. The six-consecutive-race series runs from Indianapolis on July 31 to Atlanta on Sept. 4 and puts a $3 million purse on the line for a driver, a driver’s charity and one lucky race fan. 

The flag said it all when Kyle Busch took his victory lap around New Hampshire Motor Speedway today. Holding a flag emblazoned with the number 100, Busch celebrated becoming the third driver to win 100 NASCAR national series races.  He notched this historic win at the New England 200.

The 26-year-old Las Vegas, Nev. native continues to set records. Busch also captured his 49th NASCAR Nationwide Series win today.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway officials are anticipating a near capacity crowd for Sunday’s LENOX Industrial Tools 301. As of 11 a.m. Saturday, approximately 2,000 tickets remained for Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event.  Track officials will hold a limited number of tickets for Sunday morning walk-up sales.

Please plan travel to the track accordingly and aim to arrive early.

It is easily the most overlooked event of every New Hampshire Motor Speedway race weekend.

It doesn't have the glitz of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the star power of the Nationwide Series or the cache of the Whelen Modified Tour. But the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East served notice yet again on Friday evening here at New Hampshire that the division is as entertaining as any competing during the two NASCAR weekends every year.

Max Gresham's victory in the New England 125 had a little bit of everything.

Max Gresham started his day out front and ended it in the same position, capturing the checkered flag at the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East’s New England 125 event.

Behind the wheel of the No. 18 World Crown 300 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing the 18-year old from Griffin, Ga., scored his second win of the 2011 season, fighting his way from the back to the front because of a pit stop gaffe.  

In conjunction with New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s race weekend, an evening meal with NASCAR Sprint Cup champion driver Tony Stewart was auctioned off with proceeds going to the N.H. chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities benefitting local kids in need.

The top-two bidders enjoyed a spectacular five-course dinner with lobster tails, filet mignon, fresh asparagus and some very funny and personal stories from Stewart. The top bidders were Francine Slesinski and her mother Jeannine Laroche (left) and (right) Eugene and Eileen Beckman.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is inviting all race fans to stop by the new Lite Lobster Lounge located in the display area. The speedway unveiled the new fan amenity Thursday night during FanFest.

Thanks to Miller Lite, this New England themed watering hole will feature every New Englanders favorite food including; lobster, clam chowder, hamburgers, chicken and much more.  Fans can also enjoy a cool beverage all in a family fun atmosphere.

Max Gresham was fast when it counted today at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The Griffin Ga., native will start from the pole position in tomorrow’s NASCAR K&N Pro Series East New England 125. 

This is Gresham’s third pole of the 2011 season in NASCAR’s developmental series. This is also his third start at “The Magic Mile.” Gresham’s best finish at NHMS came in 2009 where he finished ninth.

It was out with the old and in with the new today at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, as the new state-of-the-art Panasonic scoreboard was officially unveiled.

Race fans joined former NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver and ESPN analyst Ricky Craven, NHMS executive vice president and general manager Jerry Gappens and K&N Pro Series East driver Eddie MacDonald, who waved the green flag to launch the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 weekend.

Today, the New Hampshire Lottery and New Hampshire Motor Speedway are pleased to announce that the New Hampshire Lottery is now an official partner of the New Hampshire Motor Speedway throughout the 2011 season. Starting this week, the Lottery and the Speedway will be working together to rev up fans with unique promotions, special discounts and brand new offers.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway boasts a statistic that may breed some major Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup implications. That stat: There have been six different winners in the past six races. New Hampshire’s reputation as a competitively balanced track grew with each passing NASCAR Nationwide Series race at NHMS – there were 23 different winners in the first 23 races. That streak was broken last year when Kyle Busch finally repeated.

The best way to sum up Toronto is with one word: madness.

I don’t know if there was one driver who didn’t have some contact during Sunday’s Honda Indy Toronto, and I’m not sure that anyone left without being angry at another driver. It was a crazy race, but I’m pleased that we were able to come out of it with another victory.

Race week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway has finally arrived, which means NASCAR is making its way to New England.

Not only will there be plenty of on-track action, the excitement off-track continues from dusk until dawn.

Thursday, race fans can get their first taste of the action with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East practice and qualifying for the New England 125 and F.W. Webb 100.

It was shortly before 11 p.m. local time Saturday when the two images that will come to define this inaugural Sprint Cup weekend at Kentucky Speedway began to intersect. Kyle Busch stood in a Victory Lane styled after that from a horse-racing oval, giving television interviews amid the litter of damp confetti and empty energy drink cans. A few hundred feet away, a line of still red taillights snaked out of the tunnel and onto Speedway Boulevard, as spectators began the slow crawl into the traffic gridlock.

Track Facts LENOX Industrial Tools 301(NSCS)

Qualifying
Qualifying for this event is scheduled for Friday, July 15, at 3:10 p.m. (ET) and will be televised live on SPEED Channel beginning at 3:00 p.m. (EDT).  The better of two laps will determine a driver’s official qualifying speed for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301.

Two-time New Hampshire Motor Speedway winner Clint Bowyer will make his 200^th Sprint Cup start when NASCAR’s elite series returns to New England next weekend.

Behind the wheel of the No. 07 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, Bowyer got his elusive first NASCAR Sprint Cup win in 2007 when the series raced into “The Magic Mile” for the first race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. He dominated the 300-lap event, leading 222 laps for an easy win.

Draw the Line, an Aerosmith tribute, band will highlight the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 pre-race concert at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 17.

Hailing from Boston, Mass., Draw the Line is the only endorsed Aerosmith tribute band worldwide. The group boasts accolades from Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler, drummer Joey Kramer as well as family and friends of the legendary New England rock group.

The New Hampshire Motor Speedway has issued a wildlife warning for the upcoming LENOX Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR weekend.  Loudon residents have reported seeing a strange creature in the woods and a NHMS staff member was fortunate enough to have captured some video of the animal when it was recently seen on property.

Please watch this video to get a better idea of the wildlife you need to keep an eye for during the upcoming race week.

For the first time in their racing careers, one of the Cope Twins is going to attempt to race "solo" in one of NASCAR's top three series.  Without her sister Amber, Angela Cope plans to compete in the Nationwide Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, July 16. Amber will be in attendance, however, on the headset helping guide Angela instead of behind the wheel herself.

By competing in a Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville in October, the duet rewrote NASCAR'shistory books last year by becoming the first twins to ever race against each other in one of NASCAR's top three divisions.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway Executive VP/General Manager Jerry Gappens recently caught up with Rutledge Wood on NASCAR.com.  With the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 only a week and a half away, Gappens talked about the unique New England atmosphere the speedway offers to the NASCAR community.

Longtime LENOX® Industrial Tools employee Tom Joseph, along with his wife and three sons, will serve as Grand Marshals for the 2011 LENOX Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, July 17. The Josephs, who lost their home in the tornadoes that tore through New England last month, will represent the many families whose homes were damaged or destroyed as a result of the June storms.

The Coke Zero 400 featured plenty of two-car tandem racing and a feel-good story in winner David Ragan.

But several drivers left Daytona disappointed after a pair of late multicar wrecks overshadowed an otherwise tame race.

Here’s a look at the winners and losers:

Joey Logano didn't lead Friday night's Subway Jalapeno 250 until the final half mile, but that was all the 21-year-old driver of the No. 20 Toyota needed to notch his first victory at Daytona International Speedway.

As the action in Turn 4 on the final lap unfolded behind him, Logano surged into the lead and held off a charge from Jason Leffler to win his first Nationwide Series race of the season and the ninth of his career.

Only two weeks remain until the stars of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301, but this weekend it is the Corvettes of Massachusetts who will lay down some rubber.

Considered to be one of the oldest active sports car clubs in the country, COM revved its first motor in 1958. It has now grown into a general interest car club that attracts a diverse and loyal membership in the greater northeast United States and Canada.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway winner and New England native Joey Logano will highlight this year's FanFest with an autograph session for fans on Thursday, July 14 beginning at 8:30 p.m.

Driving the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota, Logano became the youngest winner in the history of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at just 19 years old, when he captured his first checkered flag in 2009 at "The Magic Mile."

Rachel Gilbert of Laconia, N.H., is continuing her life in the fast lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway by serving as Grand Marshal for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour F.W. Webb 100 on Saturday, July 16. 

Gilbert made national headlines when she celebrated her centennial birthday at "The Magic Mile" in April by driving the track's Toyota Camry pace car around the 1.058 mile oval.

To help race fans get revved up for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' LENOX Industrial Tools 301, New Hampshire Motor Speedway will give away exciting prizes each day at 3:01 p.m. in preparation for the 301 lap event on July 17.

Beginning Friday, July 1, fans can participate in several online promotions through Facebook and Twitter.  Prizes will include a fan wagon, wristbands for a driver autograph session, Richard Petty Driving Experience passes, NHMS fan packs and much more.

After years of watching the excitement of NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events on the 1.058-mile oval at New Hampshire Motor Speedway TV analyst Andy Petree has decided that he'd like to see what it looks like from behind the wheel.

Petree, a former Sprint Cup Series championship crew chief, team owner, driver and current ESPN motorsports analyst, will enter the Whelen Modified Tour F.W. Webb 100 which is scheduled for July 16 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Tony Stewart pretty much dared any Sprint Cup driver to block him with his antics on and off the race track Sunday at Infineon Raceway.

Stewart dumped Brian Vickers for blocking him during the race and said afterward that even if drivers wreck him in retaliation, as Vickers did, those that block him will pay the price.

Race fans can take a parade lap around New Hampshire Motor Speedway with their favorite NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver through the New Hampshire Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities Ride of a Lifetime Auction beginning today.  

Fans can bid on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stand inches away from drivers like Carl Edwards, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart during the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 pre-race ceremonies on Sunday, July 17.

On a sun-splashed day in the California wine country, Kurt Busch left no doubt about his ability to win on a road course at Infineon Raceway.

As dominant as the Penske Racing driver was in leading 76 of 110 laps, it’s difficult to believe that it took him 15 seasons to get his first victory on a serpentine course.

“It was one of those unbelievable days where having a game plan going in, we weren’t questioning it, it was just old school on how we were going to make it on two [pit] stops,” Busch said. “

McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes will all be hoping fervently that a change in the regulations governing engine mapping will clip Red Bull’s wings a little this weekend at the European round in Valencia and give them more of a chance of getting on even terms with the Milton Keynes team in qualifying.

The FIA have informed all of the teams that they may no longer use different settings for engine maps between qualifying and the race.

New England’s largest sports and entertainment facility has been voted Best of N.H. by N.H. Magazine for its FANtasy Drive open house event in April.

The speedway was voted best automotive event as the editor’s pick. Each year, FANtasy Drive kicks off the jam-packed racing season at the speedway.

The 2011 Daytona 500 Champion Trevor Bayne is set to be this year's key-note speaker at the 19th annual New Hampshire Motor Speedway  Governors Breakfast on Friday, July 15.

Driver of the No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, Bayne launched his way into stardom by winning this year's Daytona 500. The 20 year old also drives part-time for the veteran Sprint Cup Series team Wood Brothers Racing.

LENOX®, a leading manufacturer of premium power tool accessories, hand tools, torches, solder and band saw blades, will dedicate the 2011 LENOX Industrial Tools 301 race to helping the communities affected by the tornados that tore through New England in early June. To kick off the NASCAR race on July 17, LENOX and its employees will be presenting a check to the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross to support its tornado relief efforts.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour was back at the famous New Hampshire Motor Speedway this past week, once again turning right and left on the difficult road course.  Not only was this a regular points race, but it was a National Qualifier for the Legends Road Course Nationals being held later this year.  Twenty-six Legends Car drivers, mostly oval regulars, took to the track for what would be an excellent race.

Dario Franchitti would never admit he had a chip on his shoulder this weekend at the Milwaukee Mile.

He would never cop to taking extra motivation from what he perceived as an unfair format a week ago, when a blind draw put him 28th on the grid for the second of twin races at Texas Motor Speedway.

Franchitti drove that second Texas race with calculated fury to finish seventh without the benefit of a single full-course caution.

Three days of intense racing wrapped up today at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as the 88^th Loudon Classic came to a close.

Connecticut native Shaun Buffington continued his winning ways in the Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour; capturing his fourth NHMS checkered flag this season.  Buffington remains undefeated at “The Magic Mile.”

At just 21 years old, Shane Narbonne of Tyngsboro, Mass., captured his second Loudon Classic checkered flag this afternoon, during the oldest running motorcycle event in North America. 

Narbonne, who has been racing motorcycles since the age of seven led all 14 laps. The race finished six laps short of the 20-lap scheduled event due to a red flag incident. 

New Hampshire Motor Speedway became a Mecca for motorcycles today when the green flag dropped on the 88th running of the Loudon Classic. 

The sun shined early when the fan favorite sidecar racers took to the 1.6-mile road course for their first round of practice sessions and an eight-lap featured race.

Motorcyclists from around the country will converge on central New Hampshire this weekend when New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosts the 88th annual Loudon Classic, the oldest motorcycle race in North America.

This tradition-rich event wraps up Motorcycle Week festivities in nearby Laconia, N.H., allowing two-wheel enthusiasts the opportunity to cheer the sport's top racers and then tour the scenic highways and byways of New England.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway executive vice president and general manager Jerry Gappens joined the Granite State’s Congressional Delegation today hosting the second consecutive Experience New Hampshire day in Washington D.C.

Gappens also hosted the Experience New Hampshire reception with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, gearing up the nation’s capitol for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 on Sunday, July 17.

Three-time New Hampshire Motor Speedway winner Ryan Newman will go for his third straight NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour victory during the F.W. Webb 100 on Saturday, July 16.  

The Sprint Cup Series star swept both of the mighty modified events at “The Magic Mile” in 2010, capturing the pole and checkered flag.

“Rocket Man” Ryan Newman will once again pilot the No. 7 Chevrolet, owned by New England native Kevin “Bono” Manion and sponsored by Aggressive Hydraulics/Menards.

It will be both an emotional and celebratory feel for U.S. Army driver Ryan Newman at this weekend's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

Newman's No. 39 Chevrolet will pay tribute to the U.S. Army's 236th birthday and will honor Walter "Bud" Moore, recent NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee and decorated World War II veteran.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway and MoveThatBlock.com announced today that the innovative, cutting edge website will be the title sponsor for the IZOD IndyCar Series race on Sunday, Aug. 14.

Founded in 2010 by Todd Drowlette and Patrick Gray, MoveThatBlock.com offers a one-stop-shop for jobs, dating, commercial real estate, residential real estate, apartments, home rentals and vacation rentals. There custom features are simple to use and allow easy searching and posting in an uncluttered environment.

The Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2011 is the race in which McLaren and Ferrari must stake strong claim to Red Bull’s dominant position. Sebastian Vettel has won eight of the last nine races, and if the two legendary teams are to get back into the world championship fight they must beat the machines from Milton Keynes this weekend.

Clint Bowyer held off fast-closing J.J. Yeley to win the seventh annual Prelude to the Dream on Wednesday night at Eldora Speedway.

Bowyer started from the pole and led wire-to-wire in the 30-lap main event after winning the first of four heat races in the same fashion. Yeley was closing fast at the end and finished second, followed by Aric Almirola, Kyle Busch and Justin Allgaier.

Beginning in 2012, Farmers Insurance will be the majority sponsor of the No. 5 Chevrolet fielded by Hendrick Motorsports and driven by 11-time Sprint Cup Series race winner Kasey Kahne.

Covering the 2012-2014 racing seasons, the agreement secures primary paint schemes for Farmers Insurance in 22 Cup Series events annually and prominent brand placement in all non-primary races. A new design will be unveiled at a later date.

If there is one thing that Jeff Gordon knows, it's that he's running out of time to make certain he's part of the 2011 Chase.

So while he was pleased with his fourth-place finish in Sunday's STP 400 at Kansas Speedway, and he realizes the value of the one win he already owns this season, he's hardly satisfied. He is, on the other hand, no doubt thankful for the wild-card element that was added to the Chase qualifying format this season.

NASCAR has fined owner Richard Childress $150,000 and placed him on NASCAR probation until Dec. 31 for violating Section 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing – involved in an altercation in the garage area) of the 2011 NASCAR rule book. The violation occurred following the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race June 4 at Kansas Speedway.

Whether you like running a race or racing a car, New Hampshire Motor Speedway offers it all this weekend with the Renegade Playground Challenge 5K and the North Country Porsche Club driver education event.

The Renegade Playground Challenge is the ultimate event for thrill-seeking athletes. The challenge takes place on a course approximately three-miles in length, set with obstacles that will include running through mud, climbing steep hills, crawling through tunnels and watch out, there may even be a snake or two.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is offering an exciting prize for two lucky fans that correctly pick the winner of this weekend’s STP 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kansas Motor Speedway. 

Today through Sunday at 1 p.m., fans can enter on Facebook or Twitter to win two tickets to WWE LiveTour in Lowell, Mass., on Friday, June 17.

Users will need to come up with a pro-wrestler name and signature move for the driver they pick to win.  Participants can enter on either Facebook or Twitter.

Big Machine Records sensation Steel Magnolia will headline New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s LENOX Industrial Tools 301 FanFest, the ultimate fan party, on Thursday, July 14.

Meghan Linsey and Joshua Scott Jones of Steel Magnolia exploded onto the country music scene after winning season two of CMT's 'Can You Duet' competition. The duo signed a record deal in 2009 with Big Machine Records and released their first single, “Keep on Lovin’ You,” which became the fastest-rising single by a male/female duo in country music history.

Jamie McMurray will get escorted into his hometown of Joplin, Mo., Thursday by the mayor and the chief of police.

But it won't exactly be a hero's return or any kind of a joyful event for McMurray -- a standout Sprint Cup driver and winner of the 2010 Daytona 500.

Joplin was probably best known as McMurray's hometown until a twister that to date accounts for around 140 lives lost struck on May 22.

The Indianapolis 500, by far the biggest race of the IndyCar Series season and faced with the prospect of having Danica Patrick in the race for perhaps the final time with her possible move to NASCAR, needed to have a dramatic race Sunday.

It got it.

Kevin Harvick  won the Coca-Cola 600 Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, inheriting the lead when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas on the final turn Saturday night. 

The Indianapolis 500 and the Grand Prix of Monaco have traditionally made up two-thirds of the mythical triple crown of motorsports, with the third leg being the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Is there any harm in sliding Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 into that third spot, at least for this weekend? Don’t forget that they replaced Farrah with Cheryl Ladd in the original “Charlie’s Angels,” and look what happened. It made a great show better.

IZOD IndyCar Series president of competition and operations Brian Barnhart and staff measured various portions of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway frontstretch this week, plugged in section speed data and talked with numerous drivers in an effort to determine the best option for two-wide restarts for the 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 with respect to safety and competition.

The determination, which was laid out at the drivers’ meeting May 27:

Tony Stewart doesn’t know whether Danica Patrick plans to switch to NASCAR full time next year, but he says he is interested in possibly signing her for his Stewart-Haas Racing team if she wants to jump to NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.

Stewart, a two-time Cup champion and former IndyCar champion, has been one of Patrick’s go-to drivers as far as advice with her NASCAR experiment.

Kyle Busch, who was ticketed for driving a sports car 128 mph in a 45-mph zone Tuesday afternoon, could find out as early as July 20 whether he will have his North Carolina driver’s license suspended for 60 days.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver faces charges of speeding and reckless driving, and if he is convicted on both charges, he could have his license revoked for 60 days, according to the North Carolina driver’s manual. He is scheduled to appear in Iredell County Court in Statesville on July 20.

As I experienced the excitement and disappointment of Saturday’s Pole Day qualifying – and then watched the ups and downs of Bump Day – I came to further understand the positive and negative emotions that come from the Indianapolis 500.

I experienced both feelings in a very short period of time Saturday. Just when it looked like I had enough to get on the front row, my car ran out of fuel.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour took a right turn this weekend as 16 of the best Legends drivers in the Northeast competed on the 1.6 mile road course at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  The first of two road course races for the tour came during the popular 21st Annual Vintage Celebration week at NHMS.  While the drivers were used to only making left turns, the added challenge of turning right, and the over 100 mph speeds, made it a very exciting race.

The checkered flag has waved on New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s 21^st Annual Vintage Racing Celebration, wrapping up five straight days of racing.

Hundreds of vintage cars and motorcycles raced through the rain and took advantage of late week dryness on the speedway’s 1.058-mile and 1.6-mile road course throughout the week for both bragging rights and a few trophies.

Frank Camillieri of Chester, N.H., claimed the Bryar Cup yesterday. This is Camilleri’s 12^th consecutive year coming to “The Magic Mile.”

The sun is finally shining at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as the 21^st Annual Vintage Racing Celebration continues with fun for the entire family.   

Beginning today, thousands of classic car enthusiasts will descend on “The Magic Mile” for the Classic and Custom Car Show. The show will feature numerous hot rods, custom cars, street rods and tuners.

The green flag has dropped on the New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s 21^st Annual Vintage Racing Celebration’s Road Course days, which will run today through Sunday.

This celebration of racing history brings together vintage car enthusiasts from all over the region, including Dublin, N.H., native Dan Scully.

Diehard vintage enthusiast Larry Pfitzenmaier claimed the New Hampshire Motor Speedway Bahre Cup yesterday, during the Oval Days final event.

Pfitzenmaier, who hails from outside of Phoenix, Ariz., has driven to every Vintage Celebration since the event began 21 years ago. He has logged a total of 117,810 miles to this date, driving from his house to the track.

Despite the rain and chilly temperatures, diehard vintage racers listened to veteran NASCAR driver Ken Schrader share stories of his racing past, during the Grand Marshal barbeque last night.

Schrader began his racing career on local dirt tracks throughout the Midwest, racing anything he could.  He boasts 640 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts and three USAC championships.

The Loudon Road Racing Series was back in action for its second event of the 2011 season.  On Saturday, events took place under clear skies and cool temperatures.  Sunday, rain made for a challenging day.

Veteran Expert Rick Doucette earned multiple victories in Lightweight Supersport, Lightweight Superbike, Lightweight Grand Prix and Middleweight Production Twins.

The green flag has dropped on the 21st Annual Vintage Racing Celebration.

Today through Thursday, take in the sights and sounds of racing as it was during the early years. This historically significant race field will take on the 1.058 “Magic Mile” oval, featuring vintage midgets, sprint cars, champ cars, roadsters, NASCAR stock cars and even INDY cars.

The Amsoil Nelcar Legends Tour was back in the granite state this past weekend, at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  The last time the tour showed at the quarter mile, it was Shaun Buffington who dominated the event and took home the checkered flag.  If Buffington wanted to continue his dominance, he'd have to beat out some of the best Legends Cars drivers in the North East.

The roar of motorcycles can be heard this weekend as the Loudon Road Race Series  returns to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for its second event of 2011, today through Sunday. 

At speeds of up to 175 mph, the series two-wheeled stars will tackle the tricky 12-turn, 1.6 “Magic Mile” road course. 

Motorcycle fans can check out all of the local LRRS riders including: Shane Narbone of Tyngsboro, Mass., Brent Lyskawa, Loudon, N.H. native Christian Cronin, Scott Greenwood of Dunbarton, N.H. and Sandown, N.H., native Rick Doucette.

Over 800,000 fans voted online for the first ever Speedway Children’s Charities Speedway Star competition and the winners have finally been chosen. Congratulations to Alexandra Wentworth and Christopher Duffley.

Duffley and Wentworth belted out the national anthem in front of a panel of local celebrity judges including: Roadkill from WGIR’s “The Morning Buzz,” Rock 101’s Scorch and Adam Furious; Justin McIsaac of WHEB, Alli Beaudry of WGIR and rock guitarist Gary Hoey during the speedway’s FANtasy Drive open house in April.

Step back in time at New Hampshire Motor Speedway May 17-22 as thousands of legendary racing vehicles from around the world compete during the 21^st annual Vintage Racing Celebration.

On Tuesday, May 17, through Thursday, May 19, take in the sights and sounds of racing as it was during the early years. This historically significant race field will take on the 1.058 “Magic Mile” oval, featuring vintage midgets, sprint cars, champ cars, roadsters, NASCAR stock cars and even INDY cars.  

Jimmie Johnson, Nascar's Sprint Cup Series champion every year since 2006, isn't particularly charismatic. But he's great at what he does. He's also appealing to many fans because he seems to be just like them--the guy next door who just happens to double as the best driver on the Nascar circuit. That's among the reasons why Johnson rates as America's most influential athlete this year.

After a prolonged slump, "Nascar has had a bit of resurgence, people are becoming more aware of the drivers this year," says Gerry Philpott, CEO of Encino, Calf.-based E-Poll Market Research, which co-conducted the poll of influential athletes our list is based on.

Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch both were placed on probation for five weeks and fined $25,000 Tuesday for their actions Saturday night following the Sprint Cup race at Darlington Raceway, NASCAR officials confirmed.

Harvick tweeted about the penalties Tuesday morning and NASCAR officials later confirmed that both drivers had been issued the same penalties.

Sebastian Vettel’s drive to victory in Istanbul was near faultless, and with team mate Mark Webber backing him up in second, it was another ‘maximum’ weekend for Red Bull. The real news, however, was behind them. Practice and qualifying had suggested Mercedes were the team set to take over from McLaren as the blue cars’ biggest threat. Come the race, however, and it was Fernando Alonso and Ferrari who emerged to pick up that mantle. We take a team-by-team look at how things played out at round four.

Veteran NASCAR driver Ken Schrader will welcome thousands of vintage racing fans, during the 21^st Annual Vintage Racing Celebration at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Wednesday, May 18, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

One of the godfathers of racing, Schrader has a long history of success in all forms of racing and the Vintage Racing Celebration is a chance for fans to meet and greet a racing great.

1. Denny Hamlin was the runner-up last week at Richmond, and he's the defending champion of this weekend's event at Darlington. Is it too soon to say he's thrusting himself back into the championship picture?

Dave Rodman: It's too soon only because the points don't indicate it on paper. But I think I'm liking this point system more and more every week we get into it.

The Indianapolis 500 still has an aura and mystery for me, especially as we prepare for the 100^th anniversary of the race.

It’s funny. Even though I’ve competed at Indy since 2002 and have won the race twice, I still go into the month of May with trepidation. The two weeks are such a difficult time. The more you do it, the more you realize how difficult it is. You realize that anything can happen.

Strictly speaking, the Turkish Grand Prix does not kick off the European season since the undulating 5.338-kilometre Istanbul Park Circuit lies on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, but the fourth round of the FIA Formula One World Championship signals the return from the ‘flyaway’ races and is the prelude to the European leg.

For many of the drivers, crewmen and series officials who work in NASCAR, Darlington Raceway is a home game. Getting to the race track requires not flights and layovers, but rather a leisurely drive from the suburbs north of Charlotte, through the speed-trap town of McBee, and down into the agricultural heart of South Carolina. It's a three-hour drive back through time, from the modern hub of steel and glass shop complexes that populate the sport today, to a timeless facility that was opened in 1950 and in some ways looks now exactly as it did then.

Bicycles will replace race cars tonight at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, during the seventh annual Safe Kids 500, presented by Hannaford Supermarket beginning at 5 p.m. 

The Safe Kids 500 is a free, fun, family event that gives children the opportunity to race around “The Magic Mile” on their bikes.

Takuma Sato came up 10 minutes short of potentially claiming his first IZOD IndyCar Series victory. Will Power, not usually one to pay attention to time, said "obrigado."

Power, the pole sitter and re-start leader of the rain-postponed Itaipava São Paulo Indy 300 presented by Nestle, came into the pits for a splash of fuel on Lap 36 (the race resumed on Lap 15). Sato, who overtook Power on a Lap 25 restart, gambled on stretching the 22 gallons of 100 percent fuel-grade ethanol following a Lap 17 stop.

If there's one thing Denny Hamlin could change, he maybe wouldn't have been so forthcoming about Richmond International Racing in all those Joe Gibbs Racing team meetings.

But holding out information about his home track would make Hamlin a bad teammate, so he shared everything he knew.

Then Kyle Busch used those tips to beat his teammate Saturday night at Richmond, denying Hamlin a weekend sweep at his home track.

INDYCAR received written commitment April 28 from the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul and the mayor of Porto Alegre of their intention to play host to a second IZOD IndyCar Series race in Brazil.

Gov.-elect Tarso Genro and Mayor Jose Fortunati signed a letter of intent that both municipal and state governments will seek federal and corporate funding to stage the event on the streets of Porto Alegre in September 2012.

Roush Fenway Racing’s Trevor Bayne will miss the NASCAR Nationwide Series Bubba Burgers 250 on Friday at Richmond International Raceway as he has been hospitalized to undergo tests for symptoms, including fatigue and nausea, thought to be related to the insect bite suffered earlier this month, according to a Roush Fenway Racing spokesman.

Bayne is fifth in the Nationwide Series standings. His replacement will be from the Roush Fenway Racing stable.

The setting will be the same, but the scene will be very different the next time NASCAR's premier series arrives at Richmond International Raceway following this weekend's event. That early September date will carry with it the usual sticky, final vestiges of a long summer in the South, making everyone thankful for whomever came up with the idea of running under the lights. And the focus will be less on the race itself and more on the drama surrounding it.

Rachel Gilbert of Laconia, N.H. proved that the need for speed can hit at any age, by taking a spin around New Hampshire Motor Speedway, in the tracks pace car, to celebrate her 100^th birthday.

Gilbert’s centennial celebration got off to a flying start today, when she hopped in a Toyota Camry pace car, similar to the one that will set the field for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race on July 17.

Six finalists are one step closer to singing the national anthem in front of thousands of race fans at a New Hampshire Motor Speedway major event.

The finalists were chosen during the first ever Speedway Star Competition this past Saturday at FANtasy Drive 2.

It is now up to you race fans to decide who will showcase their talents at either the New England 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race on Saturday, July 16 or the F.W. Webb 175 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Saturday, Sept. 24.

NASCAR’s new points system emphasizes winning by placing two wild cards in the Chase For The Sprint Cup based on wins, but in the overall standings, it appears that winning doesn’t mean as much as it did a year ago under the old points system.

And like under the old system, consistency still means more than winning while poor finishes seem to be more difficult to overcome than in the past.

The green flag has dropped on the 2011 season of speed  at FANtasy Drive 2.  Join us today for a free admission, exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of New England’s largest sports and entertainment facility including, Bruton Smith’s (Chairman of the Board of New Hampshire Motor Speedway) luxury suite, the Hospitality Courtyard, NASCAR race control featuring live timing and scoring from the speedway’s pace car, the ESPN/TNT/SPEED television broadcast booths, the garage areas, and more.

In three short days, Johnny Sauter had two big reasons to celebrate.

The first came April 2 when he rallied past the always-stout Kyle Busch to win the Camping World Truck Series Kroger 250 at Martinsville Speedway.

Sauter's second – and even bigger – reason to rejoice followed on April 4 when the ThorSport Racing driver and his wife, Cortney, welcomed their second child, daughter Paige, into the world.

James Hinchcliffe was having one of those “if not for bad luck …” days.

Nine laps into the first practice session of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the carbon fiber of the No. 06 Sprott car was akin to kindling with Hinchcliffe encumbered by a six-point harness.

It was, he quipped, “like a baptism by fire.”

NASCAR announced Tuesday the list of 25 nominees for the NASCAR Hall of Fame's third induction class to be enshrined in January 2012. From that list, five inductees will be elected by the NASCAR Hall of Fame voting panel, which includes a nationwide fan vote on NASCAR.COM.

Of the 25 nominees, 20 return from last year's group. Five are first-timers: H. Clay Earles, Bobby Isaac, Cotton Owens, Les Richter and Leonard Wood.

Watching Ryan Hunter-Reay’s car fade through the quick-paced pack on Lap 70 of the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, Michael Andretti had that sinking feeling.

The No. 28 Team DHL/Sun Drop Citrus Soda car started on the front row and was running second with 15 laps left, with Hunter-Reay primed to win for the second consecutive year on the 1.968-mile street circuit.

At that point, someone should have reminder the Andretti Autosport owner of the Yogi Berra malapropism “It ain’t over till it’s over.” It would have been clairvoyant.

Race fans, if you have ever dreamed of dining with your favorite NASCAR driver, the New Hampshire Motor Speedway chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities is offering two lucky fans the chance to enjoy dinner with NASCAR Sprint Cup Series star Tony Stewart, during the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 weekend.

The difference between winning and finishing third is a millimeter. Winning requires perfection, and finishing second or third is just a fraction away from perfection. The situations and circumstances that separate winning from not winning are an eyelash. That's how close the IZOD IndyCar Series is right now. We were close Sunday – very close – but not close enough to win.

Seven-time American Canadian Tour Champion Brian Hoar of Williston, VT used patience to win the season opening NH Governor’s Cup 150 at Lee USA Speedway in Lee, NH, his 29th career ACT win. Hoar began the race in the 18th starting position after winning his heat race but earning a 0 in the ACT Plus/Minus handicap system. The veteran moved through the field and ran just outside the top five while saving his tires and his car for a late race run to the front and the win.

At speeds of up to 160 mph the Loudon Road Race Series will bring the fastest racing on two-wheels back to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend for its 2011 season opener.

The LRRS riders are revved up for a season full of intense, close wheel-to-wheel action on the speedway’s challenging 12-turn, 1.6-mile road course. 

Race fans, if you have ever dreamed of dining with your favorite NASCAR driver, the New Hampshire Motor Speedway chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities is offering two lucky fans the chance to enjoy dinner with NASCAR Sprint Cup Series star Tony Stewart, during the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 weekend.

Two rounds into the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season, the jury has delivered a split verdict on INDYCAR's newly implemented double-file restarts.

Fans seem to have enjoyed the wheel-banging action, rising to their feet for every restart in the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg and tuning in on television for INDYCAR's best TV rating for a race other than the Indianapolis 500 in more than three years.

After six weeks of short- and intermediate-track races, the Cup Series heads to the largest track on its schedule -- Talladega Superspeedway.

There have been some exciting races recently at the 2.66-mile track, but there is a bit of an unknown coming into this weekend.

The winds of change appeared to be blowing pretty fiercely last weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

And we're not talking about the gusts of wind that drivers said they had to account for during the running of the Samsung 500.

After a 76-race absence from Victory Lane, Matt Kenseth needed a quick refresher course.

"Show me where to park this thing," Kenseth radioed to crew chief Jimmy Fennig after beating race runner-up Clint Bowyer to the checkered flag by a whopping 8.315 seconds in Saturday night's Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. "It's been a while."

NASCAR issued a statistical package this week that cited the Sprint Cup Series' competitive balance and the level of competition seen in the season's first six races.

Among the numbers used to paint the picture: An average of 13 leaders per race, and 31.5 lead changes per race -- the most, after six races, in series history. Lead change records have fallen in three of the six races, Daytona, Phoenix and, most recently, Martinsville.

Folks in the Lone Star State like to say that things are always bigger in Texas, and they back it up by showing off such outrageously oversized things as steaks, Cowboys Stadium and traffic jams.

Texas Motor Speedway does its share to live up to the name. It hosts some of the biggest crowds – and traffic jams – in NASCAR. It has one of the biggest races of the season, its Chase race coming two races before the season finale.

It’s winners wear giant cowboy hats in victory lane and its trophy sports a giant pair of cowboy boots.

Izod IndyCar Series team Newman/Haas Racing on Tuesday announced that James Hinchcliffe will drive for it in the remaining North American events on the 2011 IndyCar schedule.

The 24-year-old Canadian driver finished second in the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights standings. He claimed eight podium finishes in 13 races with three wins, at Long Beach, Edmonton and Chicagoland.

Kevin Harvick made at least two drivers angry with the way he raced last weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

But neither Todd Bodine nor Ryan Newman are his opponents for the feud of the week.

Instead, it’s Kevin Harvick vs. Kevin Harvick. No, that’s not a typo.

Yes, Donald Trump says, he has a driver's license. That matter out of the way, the global business icon was announced as the driver of the 2011 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible Pace Car to lead the field of 33 drivers to the start of the 100th anniversary Indianapolis 500 on May 29.

“It’s a great honor to be selected as the Pace Car driver for such an American institution as the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis 500,” Trump said.

Denny Hamlin got caught on pit road by an untimely caution flag. Jimmie Johnson got caught speeding on pit road.

But neither of them had as bad a day as Martin Truex Jr. and Kasey Kahne, who were involved in a frightening crash at Martinsville Speedway.

They topped a long list of losers in the Goody's Fast Relief 500.

Put your iRacing skills to the test with New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the ultimate online racing game this weekend at the 37^th annual World of Wheels Expo in Boston, Mass. 

Race fans that stop by “The Magic Mile” table can experience what a lap around the 1.058-mile oval feels like from the comfort of a racing simulator.  The table will also feature ticket giveaways, prizes and a visit from Milo, the tracks fun-loving mascot.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows what it’s like to finish in the top five at Martinsville Speedway. He just doesn’t know what it’s like to win a Sprint Cup race there.

With eight top-five finishes in 22 career starts on the smallest track on the Cup circuit, Earnhardt Jr. will look for his first career win there and try to snap a 98-race overall winless streak this weekend in the Goody’s Pain Relief 500.

NASCAR's loaded with developmental series that all work to set the stage for its premier Sprint Cup Series.

If you look at current Cup standouts Kurt Busch or Greg Biffle -- to cite just two -- NASCAR's national series such as Camping World Truck or Nationwide were their respective penultimate steps.

But you have to take a step back to get to the national series, and that's where NASCAR's perfect development platform sits, namely the K&N Pro Series.

A piece of history was removed from New Hampshire Motor Speedway today, while a three-story structure popped up into view, as construction continues on the new $1.2 million Panasonic video scoreboard. The new state-of-the-art scoreboard will be ready when NASCAR and INDYCAR return to the largest sports and entertainment facility in New England this summer.    

A 150-ton crane hoisted up the final major piece onto the 80-foot tall scoreboard. The steel frame is the largest component to be added so far and will support three 32-foot-by-18-foot Panasonic TV

NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin is down but not out.

After finishing 39th due to engine failure this past Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, Hamlin is sitting 21st in points. And that has him somewhat worried.

At this point, it's starting to affect me," he said.

They ended 2010 trash-talking and racing head to head for the Sprint Cup championship.

Going into 2011, they were expected to win races and battle for the title again.

So far, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin have been relatively quiet and stayed out of each other’s way.

That could all change Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, where the two drivers have combined to win the last nine Cup races.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway executive vice president and general manager, Jerry Gappens was recently honored with the Seven Seals award by the Department of Defense Committee for Employer Support within the National Guard and Reserve on Saturday, March 26, in Portsmouth, N.H.

The Seven Seals Award is given to a limited number of citizens by the State Chairman of each Employer Support Committee. It recognizes the efforts of individuals, organizations and businesses whose supportive deeds benefit all reserve components.   

Kevin Harvick was willing to hit the wall again on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California. Just as long as it came on the final turn of the final lap, with only the checkered flag in front of him.

It didn't come to that, not this time. So much of the scenario seemed familiar -- Harvick trying to erase a lead held by Jimmie Johnson, the No. 48 car trying to keep the No. 29 in the rearview mirror, the race approaching its end and the crowd on its collective feet in anticipation.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is ninth in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series points standings, and if he hopes to remain inside the top 10, he knows he’ll need a good run at Auto Club Speedway this weekend.

But that’s easier said than done, according to the 36-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver.

“California is a track I need to run better at,” he said, and a look at his record on the 2-mile oval does nothing to refute that.

NASCAR's remarkable start to the season continued at Bristol Motor Speedway with a fourth different winner in the first four races and there are enough strong drivers remaining that we could easily see a fifth fresh face this weekend.

Roush Fenway Racing has dominated the 2-mile tracks in the past, which combined with the fact that Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth have run strong on occasion in the first four events makes them drivers to watch. And the dramatic win for Trevor Bayne at Daytona suggests even David Ragan could get into the mix if the cards fall right.

Kenny Wallace barely recognizes the Nationwide Series now compared to the one he raced in 22 years ago.

Back then, the series had its own identity, holding its races largely around the Southeast and traveling no further west than Nashville. Now, not only do the drivers head to Fontana this week, but there's the annual trip to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

At some point, Kyle Busch will thank Rick Hendrick for creating the monster that drives the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

There is nothing ordinary about Kyle Busch, and there never has been. There’s a different drummer in Busch’s brain. At driver introductions before Sunday’s Jeff Byrd 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, Busch strode down the gangway to his own music, “Rowdy Busch,” a song written for him by Raytona500.

Walmart is taking its low-price promise to NASCAR this season, partnering with nearly a dozen tracks to sponsor a special ticket package that includes four tickets, four soft drinks, four hot dogs and one souvenir program for $99.

The ticket promotion, which will be offered for 18 of 38 Sprint Cup races in 2011, serves as the first example of how Walmart plans to activate its new licensing agreement with NASCAR.

Tony Kanaan's off-season of discontent is over. The 2004 IZOD IndyCar Series champion will contest the 2011 season in the No. 82 GEICO KV Racing Technology -Lotus car.

The No. 82 is in honor of the 1965 Indianapolis 500-winning Lotus driven by Jim Clark. Kanaan will get in some laps on the Homestead-Miami Speedway road course March 22 in advance of the season-opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg this weekend.

When America’s fastest cars return to New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Aug. 14, race fans will already be familiar with the off-track activities of former Boston-area resident and three-time IZOD INDYCAR Series champion Dario Franchitti.

Franchitti will debut a blog on Boston.com Monday, March 21, giving fans a rare glimpse into the lifestyle of the reigning series champion. The blog will run each Monday following an IZOD INDYCAR Series event.

Jamie McMurray took some laps around Barber Motorsports Park on Wednesday.

It wasn’t a test to help him and his Sprint Cup team on road courses. It was a chance to drive one of team owner Chip Ganassi’s IndyCar Series machines.

“When I drove for Chip Ganassi from 2002 to 2005, honestly I don’t think I even saw an Indy car, never had the opportunity,” said McMurray,

Rusty Wallace will never forget the sack of cash he scored after winning the 1996 Suzuka Thunder Special, the first of three NASCAR exhibition races held in Japan during the late 1990s.

In Victory Lane that afternoon, Wallace was given the choice of how he wanted his $130,940 in winnings. He could have a check or cash; of course, he took the cash. There was only one small problem --

Like most NASCAR drivers, AJ Allmendinger will never forget the first time he went to Bristol Motor Speedway.

Allmendinger couldn’t believe he was supposed to race on the half-mile, high-banked oval shaped like a cereal bowl. When he finally pulled onto the track in front of 160,000 revved up fans, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of his racing career.

The high speeds and tight quarters at Bristol Motor Speedway tend to increase the intensity and cause tempers to flare a little more than at other tracks.

With the Sprint Cup Series going there for the fourth race of the season, drivers might not be able to keep their tempers in check this weekend on the 0.533-mile, high-banked concrete oval.

Bristol Motor Speedway is about more than just racing.

It’s NASCAR drama at its finest played out at one of the sport’s most unique and compelling venues.

The half-mile, high-banked bullring surrounded by 160,000 fans is known as NASCAR’s version of the Roman Coliseum. It’s where drivers go not just to race, but to do battle

Danica Patrick has been asked innumerous times and in numerous ways about her auto racing future since leaving her Scottsdale, Ariz., home to climb into a stock car early this year. Heck, it's probably played out in her dreams.

The veteran IZOD IndyCar Series driver -- much like she did a few years ago in the final year of her contract with Andretti Autosport -- acknowledged that three months into the new year she doesn't have direction.

With the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series enjoying a rare off weekend, New Englanders can still fulfill their need for speed by visiting the New Hampshire Motor Speedway display at the Northeast Motorcycle Expo.

The Northeast Motorcycle Expo, which takes place at Shriner’s Auditorium in Wilmington, Mass., is a two-wheeled enthusiast’s paradise, bringing together dealers, vendors, collectors and those with a passion for riding or racing motorcycles. Representatives of “The Magic Mile” will distribute information and answer questions about the track’s schedule of events, including the 88^th Loudon Classic on June 17-19.

Kurt Busch was about 30 minutes late for his interview when my phone rang.

"I was just making a run," the 2004 Sprint Cup champion and current points leader (tied with Tony Stewart) said apologetically. "It's hard to know in drag racing when you get to go out."

Yes, drag racing.

AJ Allmendinger summed it up best for Sprint Cup drivers and teams that have gotten off to surprisingly strong starts this season.

“I vote we just start the Chase right now,” Allmendinger said at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he entered the race fourth in points after finishes of ninth and 11th in the first two races.

Jeff Burton and Greg Biffle are in deep trouble.

So are Jamie McMurray and Joey Logano.

Burton and Biffle are Chase For The Sprint Cup regulars. Neither McMurray nor Logano has ever qualified for the Chase.

Robby Gordon, whose NASCAR probation will last through the end of the 2011 season for a physical altercation with Kevin Conway that occurred last Friday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, released a statement Tuesday saying Conway was the aggressor and he did not punch Conway.

According to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, Conway’s report to them alleged that a couple of punches were thrown by Gordon during the incident.

For Kyle Busch, you can go home again (next year) -- but right now he's happy to be leaving Las Vegas.

Less than 100 laps into Sunday's Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Busch blew a tire. A few laps later, he blew an engine. And just like that, the Las Vegas native was out of his hometown race. In between those incidents, overzealousness on the part of Kurt Busch sent him spinning.

The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) and FOX Sports announced that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ open weekend in mid-March will now deliver a never-before-seen look at the 2011 Daytona 500.

A mistake in the pits by Tony Stewart's crew gave Carl Edwards the chance he needed to put the frustration of the first two Sprint Cup Series races of the season behind him.

 Capitalizing on a penalty to Stewart, who dragged an air wrench from his stall under caution on Lap 155, Edwards powered his No. 99 Ford across the finish line 1.246 seconds ahead of Stewart's No. 14 Chevrolet in Sunday's Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

When Rick Hendrick and his team decided after last season – he insists it wasn’t just his decision – to juggle drivers and crew chiefs, it wasn’t spur of the moment.

Jimmie Johnson and Chad Knaus would remain together on the No. 48 team, figuring five straight Sprint Cup championships weren’t to be trifled with, though crew members were changed.

So this is what NASCAR’s new points system has led to.

Wrecks, wrecks and more wrecks.

Big wrecks, little wrecks and massive pileups.

And now, under NASCAR’s new, tighter points system, a wreck not only ruins a race for those involved, but it could wreck the championship hopes for some. 

The week after his Daytona 500 victory, Trevor Bayne surged to No. 1 in licensed merchandise sales at this Web site's online store. His gear sold at a rate nearly three times that of any other driver save Dale Earnhardt Jr., and double that of last year's Daytona 500 champion, Jamie McMurray. A whole new line of products, from caps to T-shirts to die-cast cars, was rolled out. A celebratory homecoming in Knoxville, Tenn., was planned, and hundreds of people braved flooding and stormy weather to see the 20-year-old NASCAR sensation honored by dignitaries in his hometown.

Kyle Busch tried to apologize for sliding into Carl Edwards and causing a multicar wreck Sunday at Phoenix International Raceway.

He might have to wait a few weeks to see if his apology has been accepted.

While the National Football League makes the daily sports headlines with such negative news and total disregard for its fan base, the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season has started with great excitement and compelling storylines.  I’m sure you caught the drama and excitement of the Daytona 500.  So did a lot of fans. Overnight ratings for the big race were an 8.7, that’s up 13% from last year. Ratings continued to rise another six-percent during the Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway and Las Vegas Motor Speedway showed a huge 29% increase over last year.

After months of anticipation, the IZOD IndyCar Series finally revealed last week that its season finale will take place in the bright lights of Las Vegas. But what looked to be a relatively simple announcement turned into something much bigger.

The $5 million prize to any “outsider” that can defeat IndyCar’s best on Oct. 16 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway may strike some as a touch gimmicky, but it certainly showed off the ambition and moxie that series CEO Randy Bernard has.

The 2011 NASCAR season is off to a roaring start, sparked by a thrilling Daytona 500 with a shocking outcome.

In the first three races of the season, there have been exciting finishes, a record number of lead changes, big multicar wrecks, aggressive driving, tempers flaring and three different winners for the first time since 2007.

Jeff Gordon didn't just drive to end hunger Sunday -- he drove to end a famine.

 With a convincing victory in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway, where he beat runner-up Kyle Busch to the checkered flag by 1.137 seconds, Gordon ended a 66-race winless streak dating to April 2009 at Texas.

NASCAR announced Wednesday that its NASCARHomeTracks.com website will feature live radio broadcasts of 32 regional touring series events in 2011.

The live broadcasts will be handled by a group from Speed51 Radio.

The first broadcast of the season took place Thursday for the K&N Pro Series West division season opening event at Phoenix International Raceway.

How wild and crazy was young Trevor Bayne’s victory Sunday in the Daytona 500?

Many are rating it the biggest surprise triumph in NASCAR's history, which dates to 1949.

Consider:

It was standing room only in the Daytona media center this past Sunday afternoon when Trevor Bayne walked in following his dramatic win in the Daytona 500.  But in the same room a year earlier, just a handful of people looked on as he drove an iRacing.com-powered simulator while Michael Waltrip talked him around Daytona International Speedway.

Posted on You Tube by Simcraft, builder of the Apex simulator builder, here’s a video of that day in 2010 when a former Daytona 500 champion used iRacing to coach a future one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RkoG1MKvfU&feature=related

Wow, what a wild Daytona weekend! We had an incredible run in the Truck Series event on Friday. We barely missed the win! It would have been such an awesome experience to go to Victory Lane for the first time for our new partner OneMain Financial, but it just wasn't meant to be.OneMain Financial will be back on our car in Texas but for the next few weeks we have several new sponsors that we hope to take to Victory Lane for the first time. Our Nationwide day wasn't what we had hoped for either, but now we get to head into one of my favorite tracks, Phoenix International Raceway.

At the end of the 53rd Daytona 500 Sunday, the proof was in the pushing for many, but none so much as David Gilliland and Bobby Labonte whose third- and fourth-place finishes, respectively, were breakthroughs.

 "There's no question in my mind Front Row Motorsports is going to be the most improved team in Sprint Cup this season," Gilliland said after posting his best finish in 84 races,

I first met 2011 Daytona 500 Winner Trevor Bayne in June 2008 at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire. Trevor was`17 and had just graduated from high school. It was his 1st season in the NASCAR Camping World East Series, what was once the NASCAR Busch North Tour. Trevor was a development driver for Dale Earnhardt Inc., a member of a 3 car team that included Jeffrey Earnhardt and Jesus Hernandez.

The Vintage Racers Group (VRG) announced today the 21^st annual Vintage Racing Celebration at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

“As the premier vintage racing event on the East coast, this year’s Vintage Festival promises one of the biggest yet featuring road racing, oval track racing, a classic car show, flea market and live entertainment,” said John Kieley, VRG Event Chairman.

Trevor Bayne, who celebrated his 20th birthday the day before, became the youngest winner of the Daytona 500 today when he held off a hard-charging Carl Edwards to win the 53d annual Great American Race in a thrilling green-white-checkered finish at Daytona International Speedway.

Driving the legendary No. 21 Motorcraft Ford fielded by the Wood Brothers Racing team, Bayne, of Knoxville, Tenn., recorded his biggest victory of his NASCAR career in only his second career start in a race in which track records were set for 74 lead changes among 22 drivers and 16 cautions.

When the green flag is waved Sunday afternoon to start the new NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, race fans will notice several new driver/sponsor combinations.

 And in an effort to ease the confusion, New Hampshire Motor Speedway officials offer the following overview:

NASCAR star Joey Logano says he is ready to hoist another giant lobster in New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s victory lane during a new television commercial that will air during coverage of this weekend’s season-opening NASCAR events in Daytona Beach, Fla.

The commercial, produced and directed by Victory Management Group, shows “The Magic Mile” snow crew shoveling 55 inches of snow off of the track’s Granite Stripe start-finish line, making room for Loudon the Lobster and the cars and stars of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the pole for the Daytona 500, will have to start in the rear of the field because of a crash that destroyed his primary car Wednesday in practice at Daytona International Speedway.

Earnhardt Jr. will also start at the rear of the field in the first Gatorade Duel qualifying race Thursday.

Mitch Davis traveled to a garage sale in North Carolina to stock his garage in Brownsburg, Ind., aka Chip Ganassi Racing West.

There are a multitude of items to tackle in preparation for the IZOD IndyCar Series season, and the task  been compounded for the start-up teams for Graham Rahal (No. 38 Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing) and Charlie Kimball (No. 83 Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing) that were announced Dec. 16.

Carl Edwards says there’s no need for a long, messy contract negotiation between him and Roush Fenway Racing over whether he will return to the team in 2012.

About five minutes later, he says he’s not in any rush to sign a new contract.

If that sounds a little contradictory, it is.

Hudson, New Hampshire’s Joey Polewarczyk, Jr. continued his hot streak on the American-Canadian Tour (ACT) with a win in Sunday’s Goodyear Speedweeks Cup feature at New Smyrna Speedway in New Smyrna, Florida. Polewarczyk had to hold off St-Denis, Quebec’s Patrick Laperle for the win.

After starting on the outside pole, Polewarczyk quickly jumped out to a large lead, while Laperle worked his way through the field from his ninth place starting position.

One lucky race fan will win the ultimate New Hampshire Motor Speedway VIP experience this weekend during the Eastern Fishing and Outdoor Expo in Worcester, Mass.

Race fans that stop by the New Hampshire Motor Speedway table can enter to win two VIP suite passes, pre-race pit passes and VIP parking access for the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 on July 17. 

This year’s Sprint Cup free agent pool could get smaller soon, but there are plenty of big-name drivers without contracts beyond 2011.

Roush Fenway Racing driver Greg Biffle said he hopes to get a contract extension done in the next few months.

His Roush teammate, Carl Edwards, isn’t as close.

The notion of retirement has shadowed Mark Martin for nearly a decade now, ever since he began the process of separating himself from a Jack Roush car that had become as much a part of his identity as his brushy gray hair. Almost every year since has brought questions of whether he'd be back the next season, and yet here he is, now at 52, still racing for one of the best organizations in NASCAR and still doing it at a very high level.

And now, facing that question again. This is the final year of Martin's contract with Hendrick Motorsports, and young buck Kasey Kahne awaits to take over the No. 5 car for the 2012 campaign and beyond. For a driver who's won 40 races and been a part of NASCAR as long as most can remember, next season brings with it only one certainty.

NASCAR knew Sunday morning at Daytona International Speedway, that the 206-plus mph speeds seen in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout were unacceptable for the rest of Speedweeks.

"What we know is, we can have good races at 100 miles and hour and 200 miles and hour and everything in between," Sprint Cup director John Darby said on Sunday evening. "I think we can agree, for both the competitors and NASCAR, that 206 was probably a little bit to the extreme side, so we'll do what we can do to probably cushion that, some."

With Daytona just around the corner, I'm glad to see the end of the offseason in sight. Around this time of year, I begin to get cabin fever and I'm ready to go racing -- especially this season as I move to the Nationwide Series to drive for Kevin Harvick Inc.

Even though I'm really excited to start racing again, I did get to enjoy a lot of quality time with my family over the offseason. My wife Amanda and I were able to celebrate our son Wyatt's first Christmas at home. It is such a fun and cool experience.

Forget Punxsutawney Phil! Weary, snow-bound New Englanders looked to Loudon the Lobster, New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s favorite crustacean, as he officially waved the white flag on winter.

Loudon, the fastest lobster in the world, emerged from his tank to visit “The Magic Mile’s” Granite Stripe start-finish line to predict when “Snowmageddon 2011” will end and when racing will resume at the speedway.

For Jamie McMurray, the 2010 season was one magical moment after another.

Winning the Daytona 500. Winning the Brickyard 400. Winning the Chase race at Charlotte. Helping team owner Chip Ganassi sweep the three biggest American auto races (including Dario Franchitti’s victory in last year’s Indy 500).

Kasey Kahne expects to have more stability and less drama at Red Bull Racing this year than he had at Richard Petty Motorsports in 2010, hopefully producing better results on the track. Only time will tell if that’s the case, but Kahne has every reason to believe things will play out that way

When the 2011 Sprint Cup Series season opens Feb. 20, it could be that the new racing surface at Daytona International Speedway has less to do with deciding who wins the Daytona 500 than the new fueling systems that will be used in competition by teams for the first time.

So say many of those who will be involved in trying to make certain the cars get enough fuel in them during the race.

Fueled by his passion for motorsports, NASCAR enthusiast and Mega Millions lottery winner Joe Denette formed Joe Denette Motorsports to compete in Camping World Truck Series. JDM will make its debut in the season opener at Daytona International Speedway and plans to run a full season in 2011.

Denette, a Fredericksburg, Va., native, did not have a promising start to 2009. He was laid off from his job of seven years and had been unemployed for four months. However, that didn't stop Denette from partaking in two of his most cherished hobbies, NASCAR and playing the lottery.

Mike Conway never doubted getting behind the wheel of an IZOD IndyCar Series car again after suffering back and leg injuries in a crash late in the Indianapolis 500 last May.

“I’m on the road to getting back in the car, not think about what happened before," Conway said in a September interview with indycar.com. "You just have to focus on what you need to do.”

There is less of Tony Stewart to go around these days, but don't get the idea he's gone all Mark Martin on the racing world.

That would be, in the carefully considered words of Stewart, "insane." But Stewart, who is roughly 15 pounds lighter than he was last fall, did admit that Martin was his inspiration for attempting to get into better physical condition as he approaches age 40.

In a one-lap dash that followed the 23rd caution of an action-filled race, Scott Pruett drove away from Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon on Sunday to win the Rolex 24 Grand-Am season opener at Daytona International Speedway's road course.

 In leading teammates Joey Hand, Memo Rojas and Graham Rahal to a fourth Daytona Prototype division victory for owner Chip Ganassi, Pruett won the overall title in the Rolex 24 for the fourth time. In all divisions combined, Pruett has six Rolex 24 wins.

When New Hampshire Motor Speedway plays host to stock cars, trucks, modifieds and motorcycles this season, a hot topic of conversation among competitors will be the $5 million challenge presented by INDYCAR CEO Randy Bernard.

The premise is simple enough: Qualify for the IZOD INDYCAR World Championships race on Oct. 14 and win the 200-lap race two days later while taking on the best-of-the-best on the 1.5-mile, variably-banked Las Vegas Motor Speedway oval and receive a $5 million check.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway launched a new monthly newsletter reaching over 50,000 race fans today, keeping them up-to-date on all of the exciting things happening at the track.

Each month, “The Magic Mile” Insider will feature news and notes, details about track improvements, fan profiles and much more information regarding the 2011 season, which includes the best schedule of major races in the speedway’s 21-year history.

The final day of the annual NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway kicked off with an announcement from NASCAR.com that focused on improved services catering to race fans.

The site's current Race Buddy and new NASCAR Fantasy Live programs will feature more detailed data available to NASCAR fans.

"The changes and additions we are implementing are geared toward making the NASCAR fan as excited and engaged in the sport as possible," said Jason Williams, general manager of NASCAR.com

With just a few weeks remaining until the Sprint Cup Series season gets under way, Sprint unveiled its 2011 Miss Sprint Cup lineup Wednesday night in Charlotte, N.C.

Returning Miss Sprint Cup representatives Paige Duke and Monica Palumbo were joined by newcomer Kim Coon. The trio was introduced to a crowd of race fans and motorsports media at the popular Whisky River nightclub.

NASCAR announced Wednesday that it has added a wild card element to setting the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field and it has simplified its points system for 2011, making it easier for fans, competitors and the industry to understand. 

 While the 12-driver Chase field remains intact, the final two spots will be determined by the number of wins during the first 26 races.

Before Dario Franchitti went out and won the PEAK Performance Pole Award for the IZOD IndyCar Series’ 2010 championship-deciding race, team owner Chip Ganassi asserted that Franchitti should be considered among the best of all-time.

A day later -- with a record-tying three IZOD IndyCar Series championships, two Indianapolis 500 victories and 26 Indy car career wins – Ganassi’s statement requires deeper consideration. During the season, Franchitti tied Rodger Ward for 11th on the all-time list. Next in his sights is Johnny Rutherford (27), and matching Rick Mears (29) isn’t out of the question.

Michael Waltrip Unveils New Book About 2001 Daytona 500
During breakfast on the second day of the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip introduced his new book to the motorsports press.

In the Blink of an Eye: Dale, Daytona, and the Day that Changed Everythingtells Waltrip’s story as he experienced the highest and lowest points of his career within a matter of minutes on February 18, 2001. Written by Waltrip and New York Times Bestseller Ellis Henican, the memoir takes readers through Waltrip’s early career and into Daytona International Speedway’s victory lane after 462 failed attempts at a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win.

Read the notes and quotes from Monday's NASCAR Sprint Media Tour announcements, including updates from Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates and Stewart Haas Racing.

The New Hampshire chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities would like to thank those who participated in New Hampshire Motor Speedway’s inaugural snowmobile ride on Saturday, Jan. 22.

The radar runs produced incredible speeds at “The Magic Mile” and the trail ride was the perfect way to enjoy the recent snowfall.

It’s an exciting time of the year for all of us in racing. After nearly three months of being dormant, Sunday, the green flag drops for the Daytona 500, signifying the start of another racing season. As with each new season, it all starts with great optimism from everyone in the sport, the drivers, teams, sponsors, NASCAR and especially the fans. Is this the year for your favorite driver?

Blue skies, warm air. Cars on the race track.

That's how the 2011 edition of Preseason Thunder at Daytona kicked off Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, the first of a three-day Sprint Cup Series test.

When 17 drivers got a chance to test on Daytona International Speedway’s repaved oval last month at a Goodyear tire test, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano wasn’t among them.

The Gibbs teams didn’t have their new restrictor-plate cars ready and opted to skip to two-day test. Team officials figured the three-day test session that begins Thursday should be enough to get ready for Speedweeks, which features the Feb. 20 Daytona 500.

Just the name alone packs a punch, conveying so much more than simply a position on a map. It's one of those locales that has a certain mythical element connected to it, that at its mere mention brings a million feelings, images, or emotions to mind. Maybe it's the memory of all the things that have happened there, both good and bad. Maybe it's the sheer scale of the place, everything oversized and overwhelming. Maybe it's something as simple as the ominous long vowel sound in the middle syllable, which allows its verbalization to be stretched out to almost dramatic lengths.

Daytona.

In the next two weeks, NASCAR officials are expected to announce changes that will affect both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide series. Will the Cup points system undergo a complete overhaul? Will Cup drivers not be allowed to earn points in the Nationwide Series? Will the Chase For The Sprint Cup go through yet another format change? We’ll know the answers soon.

In the meantime, here’s a look at seven changes we would like to see in 2011:

NASCAR driver Juan Montoya and his wife, Connie, became parents for the third time last year, and they're enjoying the experience tremendously.

 But sometimes, thanks to the activity of him and Connie's Formula Smiles Foundation, you would think the Montoyas actually have thousands of kids, based off the numbers of youngsters they help.

There’s a long list of them every year – drivers coming off disappointing seasons who desperately need to turn things around.

Some are in a prolonged slump. Others just had a bad year.

But they all have one thing in common – they need to show significant improvement in 2011 or they could find their future in jeopardy beyond this season.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway will launch a winter-driving program in conjunction with the Sports Car Driving Association on Saturday, Jan. 15, in the freshly-coated, snow-covered S-3 parking lot.

The high-performance, inclement-weather driving clinic is the perfect opportunity for motorists to polish their winter driving skills, while in a safe and contained environment.   

As Daytona inches closer on the calendar, the NASCAR.COM writing staff looks ahead to the 2011 season and offers up some predictions. The focus for Thursday is which driver is the one on which you should keep your eyes in 2011.

MARK AUMANN

For all the victories he's piled up in Nationwide and Trucks -- including the 2009 Nationwide drivers championship -- Kyle Busch remains somewhat of an enigma in Cup.

Double-wide restarts on ovals and the restart area moving closer to the start/finish line were among the 2011 rules alterations announced by IZOD IndyCar Series president of competition and racing operations Brian Barnhart during the State of INDYCAR program in Indianapolis.

On-track changes incorporated in the rulebook followed input from team owners and drivers, along with communication with fans.

One storyline NASCAR fans won’t be reading about in 2011 will be a race for Sprint Cup rookie of the year.

So far no rookie driver has committed to run the full Cup season.

With teams looking to reduce costs and sponsors hesitant to take a chance on unproven drivers, Cup teams have mostly shied away from driver development programs in recent years.

Drivers in NASCAR's three national series will have to elect a single championship to chase in 2011, eliminating the ability of drivers such as Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards and Paul Menard -- who were full-time double-dippers in 2010 -- to chase two championships at once.

 NASCAR has scheduled a "competition update" on Jan. 21 with NASCAR president Mike Helton and vice president for competition Robin Pemberton as part of the "Preseason Thunder" Sprint Cup test session at Daytona International Speedway.

Just as Mario Andretti, Earl Ross and David Hobbs were drawn to the Daytona 500 in years past, several international drivers are targeting the 2011 NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown, a race that has come to be known as the ‘Daytona 500 of short-track racing,’ on Jan. 28-29 at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale (Calif.) as an opportunity to make their mark on the world of NASCAR.

Brian Vickers, who was forced to take a medical leave of absence from the Sprint Cup Series last spring, made his first laps in one of his Red Bull Racing Team stock cars in eight months Monday at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Fla.

 The first day of the two-day session was interrupted by rain in mid-afternoon but both Vickers, who last drove in May 2010, and his new teammate Kasey Kahne, who said he "felt great" after having surgery on both knees immediately after the 2010 season, were thrilled.

The 2010 NASCAR season had nearly everything for which a fan could ask.

Compelling races, thrilling finishes, driver confrontations and feuds and, at the end, one of the closest championship races in history.

The exciting finish to the season gave NASCAR plenty of momentum heading into 2011.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be featured this weekend at two New England area expositions, the Northeast Motorcycle Expo in Providence, R.I. and the Northeast Motorsports Expo in Augusta, Maine.

“The Magic Mile” will showcase a variety of displays, raffle drawings and past race footage. 

The most ambitious racing schedule in the 21-year history of New Hampshire Motor Speedway includes the three largest sporting events to be held in New England during 2011.

 For the 15^th consecutive year, “The Magic Mile” will host two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series dates with the LENOX Industrial Tools 301 on Sunday, July 17, and the SYLVANIA 300 on Sunday, Sept. 25.

For race fans, these are the doldrums. The last of the confetti from the previous season's finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway has long been swept up. Champion's Week in Las Vegas has come and gone. The holidays have given way to a cold, dark, silent period that won't be broken until late January, when the engines fire for a full-field test at Daytona International Speedway. Any real racing is still a distant six weeks away.

Welcome to 2011, everybody! Hope 2010 closed out well for you and yours. As the new year kicks off, it dawns on me that we're so totally living in the future. I mean, check it out -- the iPhone is so much better than Star Trek communicators (and the iPhone 5 will feature a laser beam!), we've actually got flying cars now (ask Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski), and aliens walk among us. How else to explain the dominance of Jimmie Johnson, huh?

The new Dallara simulator isn’t your iracing.com or Wii console. It can’t be compared to another unit because, well, there isn’t anything quite like it.

Occupying a 40 x 40 foot, two-story room at Dallara headquarters in Parma, Italy, it contains more than 5,900 feet of fiber optic cable, has 16 monitors to visualize data, employs a Dolby Surround 5.1 audio system, and checks in at about 650 tons.

We have just finished posting the top 10 stories in 2010, and if you’re anything like me, you’re tired of rehashing 2010.

So on to 2011.

Here are 10 stories that could make news in 2011. That is, if they really occur. They might sound strange, but who could have predicted last year a Daytona pothole, a Jeff Burton-Jeff Gordon scrap and a driver signing a contract to get in a car in 2012?

As 2010 comes to a close, NASCAR.COM looks back at the season that was and forward at the season that's looming on the horizon with some Top 5 lists.

In Saturday's list, David Caraviello breaks down the five biggest issues facing NASCAR.