NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTOR SPEEDWAY - LOUDON NH
The track opened as New Hampshire International Speedway in June 1990, after nine months of construction following the Bahre family's purchase of the Bryar Motorsports Park. It is a flat, paved oval just over one mile in length. NASCAR made its debut at the track in July 1990, with a Xfinity Series race won by Tommy Ellis. With the Xfinity series races being successful. Loudon gained a spot on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule in 1993. Rusty Wallace won the inaugural Slick 50 300 in July. After the 1996 season Bahre and Bruton Smith bought North Wilkesboro Speedway and moved one of its Cup dates to New Hampshire. The track also hosted Indy car style racing for seven years, from 1992–1998. In 2000, the track was the site of a pair of fatal accidents, which took the lives of two promising young drivers. In May, while practicing for a Xfinity Series race, Adam Petty
perished when his throttle stuck exiting the second turn, resulting in a full speed crash head-on in the middle of the third and fourth turns. When the NASCAR Cup Series made their first appearance of the season, a similar fate befell 1998 Rookie of the Year Kenny Irwin, Jr. The 2001 New Hampshire 300 was originally scheduled for September 16, the Sunday after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The event was postponed until November 23 of that year, which was the Friday after Thanksgiving. There was much concern about the weather, but race day turned out to be unseasonably mild. Robby Gordon won that race. In 2002, in an effort to increase competitive racing, the track's corners were turned into a progressive banking system, as the apron was paved and became part of the track, and the track's banking was varied from 4 degrees in the lower two lanes to 12% grade. The addition of SAFER barriers to the corner walls was made in 2003. Before the
Kenny Irwin 2000 accident
2008 racing season, Speedway Motorsports purchased NHIS and other racing-related assets from the Bahre family for $340 million cash. One of the assets included in the sale was a 50% interest in North Wilkesboro Speedway. The other 50% was still owned by Bruton Smith, the CEO of Speedway Motorsports. After the 2012 Sylvania 300, Bruton Smith stated he wants to install permanent lighting at the speedway. However, Bob Bahre signed a legal agreement with the town of Loudon and several neighbors
when the track opened that nighttime races were prohibited. The agreement is binding on the current owners. A poll taken in 2012 showed 58% would not mind if night racing happened at the track. In a change twist of fate, we saw the Fall race weekend move to Las Vegas. Thus New Hampshire would lose it's date that it got because of North Wilkesboro's demise. NASCAR will continue to race at this facility going forward hosting the Cup; Xfinity; K&N and Whelen Modified events. As of 2022, NASCAR seems to be moving to smaller tracks, and those tracks will need race dates. So it's possible sometime in the near future that New Hampshire may lose it's race date?
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