New Hampshire Governor Addresses NHMS July NASCAR Event Weekend

New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu addressed racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway during a press conference Wednesday. 

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is scheduled to host the NASCAR Cup Series Foxwoods Resort Casino 301 on July 19. The race weekend at NHMS is also scheduled to include NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour events on July 18 in addition to various events on July 17 at both the 1.058-mile oval and the dirt track facility that was opened last year. 

All of NASCAR’s national and regional touring divisions have been suspended since mid-March due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. NASCAR had run four Cup Series events before shutting down all racing. 

There has been speculation in recent days that NASCAR could restart live Cup Series events without fans beginning in mid-May. 

Sununu said Wednesday he has been in touch with representatives from the Speedway concerning events in Loudon. The Loudon Classic motorcycle event originally scheduled for June 21 has been postponed to August 29, which is conjunction with the traditional Laconia Bike Week being moved to late August. 

“I think the NASCAR situation isn’t just with New Hampshire, it’s obviously national around the country,” Sununu said. “So we’ll continue to work with them to try to find a solution. Luckily it’s in July still so it’s a few months away. I think we’ll have a better understanding in a few weeks seeing where the numbers go, assuming they can keep dropping like they’ve been dropping. We’re on positive trends. I think we’ll have a better understanding of what our possibilities might be. Right now being April it’s just too early to make any sort of definitive decision on what we can do with that. 

“Obviously we all want it to happen and it’s a great event but boy you’re really putting 80 to 100 thousand people potentially in a pretty tight packed space on a hot July day. … A lot of out of [state people] potentially could come in. Is there guidance we can create around that that might limit the number of people that can go? That might limit certain activities that traditionally happen. Remember it’s not just the race in Loudon, there are all these other wonderful activities happening out in the parking lot. … We’ll have to look at all the aspects of what race weekend is all about. If we have to thin it down or narrow it down to make sure it is safe to allow it to go forward we’d love that to happen. But we’ll have to see where the data really takes us. Everything we do is science and data driven.” 

A trimming of the NASCAR weekend in Loudon could possibly mean the Whelen Modified Tour event on July 18 being cut from the schedule. The Whelen Modified Tour is scheduled to return to Loudon for the Musket 200 on Sept. 12. 

The NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour has seen its first four events of the season put on hold. The series was scheduled to kick off its season on March 21 at South Boston (Va.) Speedway. No makeup date for that event has been announced. 

The series was originally supposed to run its second event of the season on April 5 at Thompson Speedway with the running of the Liquid Death Icebreaker 150. That event was first rescheduled to mid-May but now has been postponed to a date to be determined. The Whelen Modified Tour Spring Sizzler 200, originally scheduled for April 26 is now tentatively scheduled for May 31. The May 8 Whelen Modified Tour event scheduled for Martinsville (Va.) Speedway has been postponed to a date to be determined. 

The next scheduled event for the Whelen Modified Tour is May 23 at Jennerstown (Pa.) Speedway. 




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Comments

  1. Plugs 2020 says

    Oh well. If the mod tour isn’t going, there will be no reason to go anyway.

  2. Not looking good for the spring sizzler

  3. Who would of thought two months ago that’s track like Thompson Might be positioned well going forward. I assume they will be able to move forward with road course events due to lack of crowd and people vs other oval tracks. Also they will still be able to get revenue from the golf course.

  4. I know there is a lot of wait and see but Meadowbrook outdoor concert venue up the road from NHMS has canceled the May shows but a bunch have been rescheduled until Sept and are still a go. Again, this could change but let’s get through May and June before we write off all of 2020. This country is so divided on this it’s crazy. What we can and can’t do in Sept doesn’t have to be decided on May 1st.

    NH Governor has a 3pm press conference to announce some openings. Some places to remain closed. State Parks have been so packed on weekends that they have drawn up additional regulation there.

  5. What allot of people are forgetting is that this vurus is just getting started. So far we’ve only tested a little over 2% of the population. The experts are saying 60-70% of the population will get infected before we even have “herd immunity” whatever that is. We’ve got a long way to go, but unfortunately a short time to get there because of the way this virus spreads. A vaccine might be available by next February, provided everything goes right. If you think the last 2 months were bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

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