Event Overview
● Event: Ambetter 301 (Round 20 of 36)● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, July 17● Location: New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon● Layout: 1.058-mile oval● Laps/Miles: 301 laps / 318.46 miles● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 70 laps / Stage 2: 115 laps / Final Stage: 116 laps● TV/Radio: USA / PRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Notes of Interest
● Chase Briscoe, driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), finished 16th in last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He ran in the top-five before sustaining damage early in the event. Though the series now heads to the shorter, flatter New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, the No. 14 has shown speed throughout the year at similar tracks, including Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway and Phoenix Raceway, the site of Briscoe’s first Cup Series win. ● Briscoe is 18th in the driver standings with seven races remaining in the regular season. He currently holds a spot in the 16-driver playoff field by virtue of his March 13 win at Phoenix Raceway. ● In last year’s 301-lap event at New Hampshire, Briscoe started 19th and finished 27th in his first start at “The Magic Mile” in nearly two years. ● Briscoe made one NASCAR Xfinity Series start at New Hampshire in 2019, in which he started fifth and finished sixth. He also has one NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start at the 1.058-mile oval, which resulted in an 11th-place finish. ● Crew chief Johnny Klausmeier earned a third-place finish at New Hampshire with Aric Almirola in 2018, his best result in four races there atop the pit box.
Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 Mahindra Tractors Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:
You said Phoenix was one of your worst tracks and then you won there in March. You’ve said the same about New Hampshire, so is there any chance you’re a driver to beat this weekend?“No, none. New Hampshire is my worst racetrack by a lot. So yeah, we were in the sim there the other day, and it was a struggle. So don’t take anything from the Phoenix turnaround. I feel like everything I do as a driver never really works at New Hampshire. It’s a weird racetrack for me. It just doesn’t suit what I do, so we definitely need to figure it out. But I don’t have a lot of confidence going in there. But I didn’t have a lot of confidence going in Phoenix, either, and it worked out. So hopefully, we can go to New Hampshire and leave happy.” We saw some aggression on the flatter, shorter tracks like Gateway. Is that what we’ll see at New Hampshire?“For sure. I feel like on the short tracks, this car’s been kind of harder to pass with. And I think guys know that now, especially now that we’ve run a couple of them. So I think you’re definitely going to see more aggression. And I think New Hampshire is going to be a handful, just from how rough the racetrack is in this car, getting on the limiters and things like that.” Because New Hampshire is a rougher track, if you’re going into the corner, trying to get on the brakes, trying to downshift, all while racing someone for position, is there a point where it can get to be a little bit too much, or upset the car?“I mean, that’s kind of what happened to me in Nashville, and I just went inside the 42 and I was trying to downshift. Trying to do it earlier to help me slow down, and I ended up over-revving and spinning out underneath him. New Hampshire, with how rough it is, I think it’s going to be even harder than Nashville or some of the previous tracks we’ve gone to because of how rough it is on corner entry. You’re going to be going into fourth gear, sometimes maybe third gear, and if you’re racing underneath somebody, it’s definitely not going to be easy. I think it’ll be a race of attrition to a certain extent just because of that. Hopefully we’re one of the guys who can figure it out.”