The NASCAR K&N Pro Series East is gearing up for their third straight week the track, this Saturday, July 15th at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for the United Site Services 70 at 6:45 pm ET.
New Hampshire has hosted more series races than any other track on the schedule, and helped usher in the early days of the K&N Pro Series and continues promoting the regional touring series. This weekend the 1.058-mile asphalt banked oval track will showcase the next generation of drivers moving up the rungs of the NASCAR ladder. Besides hosting 70 races since 1990, the local track, just an hour from Boston, is also a testing ground for a team’s championship strength.
NHMS is one of those tracks that championship teams want to win. Drivers winning at NHMS, while also winning the title in the same season has taken place ten times. Since 2004, seven champions have visited NHMS Victory Lane – including the current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series points leader, Kyle Larson, who won at Louden on his way to winning the 2012 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East championship.
Other current NASCAR National Series drivers winning at NHMS include K&N East champions Ricky Craven in 1991, Joey Logano in 2007 and Ryan Truex in 2010. Most recently, the 2015 K&N East champion William Byron – second in the NASCAR XFINITY Series point standings, with two victories – also won at New Hampshire in the same season.
The United Site Services 70 is the 71st K&N Pro Series East event at New Hampshire since September 1990 and the fourth straight year racing on the same summer NHMS schedule as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The series raced on the September weekend in 2012 and 2013. New Hampshire is the largest oval on the K&N East schedule.
What to watch for this weekend at New Hampshire:
Last year’s pole sitter is Kyle Benjamin and the defending winner at NHMS is Corey Lajoie. Neither driver is on this year’s entry list, so expect a new winner this weekend.
Second Generation driver, Harrison Burton, with MDM Motorsports is the current series points leader, earning his fourth victory in the last six events last weekend at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.
Winless last season, Burton is now in his K&N East sophomore year. In addition to his win at Thompson, he’s also won at Bristol, South Boston, and Memphis this season. A member of this year’s NASCAR Next class, Burton has a 22-point lead over Todd Gilliland in the series point standings on the strength of seven top-fives in eight races with himself and Gilliland as the only drivers to finish inside the top-ten in every start at this point of the season.
Burton’s father Jeff has four wins on the New Hampshire track in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, including 2000 when he became the only driver to lead every lap of the race en route to winning at the track.
A local favorite, Andy Seuss will have a busy weekend at New Hampshire.
Seuss grew up in nearby Hamstead, NH and is a two-time champion in the former NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Touring Series. He’s making his K&N Pro Series East debut this weekend in the United Site Services 70 and is also competing in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Touring event earlier on Saturday. Seuss has 22 career Modified victories and starts his weekend on Friday in the Whelen Modified All-Star Shootout – a 35-lap non-points event.
Several drivers moving on to NASCAR national series success jump-started their careers at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
In addition to Ricky Craven, the 1991 series champion who won three times at the track in K&N Pro Series East competition, Daytona 500 winners Joey Logano and Derrike Cope also won K&N Pro Series East races at NHMS. Mike McLaughlin won four times in the series at Loudon, while current Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson, Matt DiBenedetto and Corey Lajoie all have won at the track.
NHMS has been so significant to the K&N Pro Series East, that nine of the ten drivers named to the series’ ‘Top-Ten Drivers of the First 25 Years of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series’ in 2011 all won races there.
Former National Football League All-Pro linebacker Shawne Merriman will have an influence on the United Site Services 70.
The Patriot Motorsports Group will have three entries in the field on Saturday, led by Jesse Iwuji – who drives for Merriman in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West – in the No. 36. Stafford Smith of Eagle, Idaho, will pilot the No. 38 while John Wood, also of Eagle, Idaho, will drive the No. 36 car. Iwuji is also the owner of the No. 34 this weekend.