Catchfence

New Hampshire Motor Speedway opened its first weekend of the season and a lot of fireworks erupted, with most of them off the track but enough on the track to keep people talking. The NASCAR Modifieds put on their usual thriller of a race and Ryan Newman outfoxed Ted Christopher in a great shootout in the final ten laps, as Christopher took the lead twice but Newman repassed, then snookered Terrible Ted in a manner reminiscent of the last-lap play-action lead change that cost Teddy a Loudon win a few years back.

Once that wrapped up Kyle Busch cleaned house in the BGN 200 while a mediocre IRL driver crashed with Morgan Shepherd early in the going and whined about it afterward.

Then on Sunday a prolonged period dominated by Kasey Kahne and Jeff Burton turned upside down on some late yellows, several wrecks, and a showdown betwen Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch that loudly proclaimed that the recent rut for the four-time champ is over. The late-race scraps left Juan Montoya with another wrecked racecar and AJ Allmendinger upset with Ryan Newman – it also leaves Newman looking two-faced after his haughty holier-than-thou rip on fans at Talladega last autumn – while illustrating the continuing rise of a potential new star for NASCAR aligned with the sport’s greatest star in the owner of Allmendinger’s #43.

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But amid the racing the track itself became a source of controversy after Bruton Smith threatened to pull the June date after a spat with local police, a spat that illustrates what a former board of selectman member angrilly noted is Bruton Smith’s chronic refusal to engage in negotiation and compromise, a drastic difference from former owner Bob Bahre.

Simultaneously with the spat with local police, the track announced its new IRL date next season, a move more than a few saw as setting the table for replacing a Loudon date with IRL so that Bruton could feed his fantasy of Winston Cup at Kentucky. The notion of moving a New Hampshire date doesn’t carry much plausibility as NASCAR wants no part of cutting back in one of its stronger market areas, but given how Bruton has worked, it isn’t something that will go away for awhile.

And it begs the question that has been asked before but which so often requires asking again – why does Bruton do these things?

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One of the unfortunate casualties of recent internal issues is Fred Neergaard, long the Director of Communications at NHMS but no longer in the track’s employ. It is difficult to imagine a more gracious and more pleasant official of any sporting venue than Fred. Whether you are a decades-long veteran of racing or a raw Internet rookie, Fred in the years I’ve gone to Loudon could never have been a better ambassador of the sport, of his speedway, of the area. If you made a mistake in a press conference he’d let you know in a way that allowed you to correct the mistake quietly. If you had a question, Fred gave you honest answers – in the years I dealt with him he was always honest and his answers were always credible.

Wherever he goes next, I hope it’s in racing, because he’s the best New Hampshire ever had.