It's Thursday again. That means it's time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup with a spin around the dirt track at the end of the street. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks... Bob Bahre, the former owner of what was called New Hampshire International Speedway, always wearing a pressed white shirt and work pants, with the same yellow cardigan sweater if he caught a chill in the air. He dined in the same little breakfast nook each morning, spoke shortly and directly, and never seemed to smile -- even when cracking a joke so dry a garden hose couldn't save it. On the other hand, you've got about as big city glitz as they come. * ON THE ONE hand, you've got about as old New England as they come.
Bruton Smith, who bought Bahre's speedway for $340 million and promptly renamed it New Hampshire Motor Speedway to put it in line with his Speedway Motorsports Inc.'s other NASCAR tracks, dressed to the nines in wide sunglasses, a $100 shirt and perfect tan. He lives and dreams big, big, big -- always laughing at his own jokes and holding court like a Vegas lounge performer.
But the 2 men are also very similar under their thick exteriors.
Both know how to play -- and win -- at the game of politics. They may play the game differently, but they're playing by the same rules, for certain. Bahre will beat you to death with looping gap shots and seeing-eye singles; Smith swings for the fences and reaches the bleachers more times than he doesn't.
And Smith is going to swing for the fences here in New England, don't be fooled.
He'll have his lights, he'll have the track reconfigured if he sees so fit, he'll make it bigger, better and badder.
And he'll do it just the way he wants. The red-legged frogs didn't stop him in California before, and something as an aniquated as a binding "covenant" with a town written 2 decades ago won't stop him now.
Being New Englanders, the announcement of Smith's purchase of NHMS last fall was met with trepidation and anxiety. Instead of being a bad thing, though, it's only proving to be better and better with every passing day.
More races for regional teams, more big events for fans and more amenities than ever before.
Smith said he won't take a New Hampshire race date to Las Vegas, as has been long speculated. But he may bring a little Vegas to New Hampshire in the interim. Or maybe a lot of Vegas.
"This sport needs Las Vegas again," Smith said. "Everybody out here in the (NASCAR) garage, everybody, they want to go to Vegas again and again and again."
* ONE OF THE things Smith squashed almost as soon as he sat down in front of the microphone to meet with the media on Sunday morning prior to the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 was the notion of an NHRA-sanctioned drag strip in Loudon, N.H.
"No," he said flatly. "Uh, never."
Methinks that decision came more from a desire to soften his relationship with local lawmakers than not wanting drag racing. Smith knows he wants lights, and he knows he wants to add an IRL race sooner rather than later (read: in 2009). Already throwing out the idea of trying to get a drag strip built on the property could just rankle feathers enough to make getting anything done that much more difficult.
Consider the answer a smart public relations play by Smith -- but don't count out the NHRA within the decade.
* LINE OF THE WEEKEND at NHMS came from a longtime national NASCAR beat writer, who looked out at the stands midway through Sunday's Sprint Cup Series event, which had been announced as the 27th straight sellout of a Cup race at the track.
"If this is a sellout," the writer said, scanning the grandstands, "then this is the no-show capital of the world."
Enough said.
The stands in turns 3 and 4 were as sparsely dotted as the ones in the same area of the track at Michigan International Speedway on Father's Day.
* WHAT CHOICE DID Tom Mayberry or Bobby MacArthur really have?
The few people who paid the ridiculously inflated admission to see Cup drivers Kyle Busch and Regan Smith run the PASS North Series All-Star 200 had every right to expect that those drivers would be in the starting field.
Moving a program along under a threat of rain is almost always the right move -- but doing so in an instance like this would have been worse than raining out. It's known when you schedule Cup drivers competing at a nearby track that creative scheduling is going to be involved. Busch had to run the Nationwide race, plain and simple, and the promoter and the fans paid large sums of money to bring Busch to All-Star.
Given that they are going to honor tickets for the rain date on July 30, fans will still see what they paid for. The only unfortunate side of it is that they'll have to travel again.
Sometimes, we have to accept a little bit of bad luck as part of the deal, particularly in the racing game. One thing I have no tolerance for is complaining about rain.
You'll never win that battle.
* LINE OF THE WEEK No. 2 goes to Beech Ridge Motor Speedway Sport Series driver Reggie Leeman.
"David Lampron is a moron," Leeman said in victory lane at the Ridge on Wednesday night, where he picked up his first win in almost a year.
Succinct. To the point. A clear representation of how Leeman felt.
At issue here was a scrap involving virtually all 6 of the lead cars on lap 31 of the 35-lap feature, where Leeman and Lampron made contact. And Leeman simply wanted some measure of respect.
"I go out there and I don't maul people," Leeman said, "and I expect the same thing in return. I would love to have raced him clean -- he's parked 2 spots away from me in the pits, and I don't want to have any issues with people.
"But I expect the same things I give out there."
Not knowing all the history, I know that I'm still inclined to side with Leeman here. There's give in racing, and there's take in racing. And, in this sport, 'tis truly better to give than to receive.
* HERE'S HOW TO slow a race program.
Before the featured event of the evening, play the Ray Charles version of "America The Beautiful." As soon as that ends, fire right into "The Star-Spangled Banner" as performed by Whitney Houston.
You'll kill every time. No, seriously, you will. And you'll kill about 20 minutes in the process. For good measure, throw in "God Bless The U.S.A." once the drivers are buckled into their cars.
I know. I was at Beech Ridge on Wednesday night and saw that very thing happen.
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