NASCAR at New Hampshire: Mayhem and Madness Signs of Things to Come

Mix aggressive driving, points-hungry drivers fighting to win, a flat one-mile track and some short tempers and you will have a weekend of racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Both the NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series are running this weekend at the Loudon, New Hampshire track.

Racing on the flat track with maximum banking of seven degrees puts passing at a premium, though cars can run side-by-side, which adds to driver frustration.

The Nationwide New England 200 had a bit of everything for the fans which may be a preview of what is to come when the Cup drivers hit the track for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301.

Brad Keselowski started on the pole and as usual the Cup drivers were at the front most of the race with Nationwide regular Ricky Stenhouse Jr. running with them, trying to be the spoiler.

Roush Fenway Racing driver Carl Edwards suffered an engine failure some 40 laps into the race and headed to the booth for commentary on the balance of the race.

Stenhouse Jr. spun by himself, but it was Steven Wallace who spun Jason Leffler and Joey Logano in two separate incidents.

Tire strategy was interesting with the usual choice of two or four, but with 80 or so laps to go the top 10 cars chose to not take tires. The leaders did not take tires for the balance of the race.

Track position is critical and you will see tire strategy and fuel be important factors for the Cup drivers as well.

With four laps to go, Wallace found out that paybacks aren't pretty when Brian Scott got into him. The result was a crashfest that led to fuel mileage concerns under caution.

Of course the tight racing that is the result of restarts toward the end of the race usually results in a green-white-checker finish as it did in the Nationwide race.

Kyle Busch looked to be the car to beat at the end. With his drag racing restarts, he took the lead. The long caution caused some worry that he would run out of gas, but he did not.

Busch won the New England 200 which tied the record of Mark Martin's 49 Nationwide series wins. It was also the 100th National series win for Busch.

As the fans cheered for Busch, yes, they really did, he was handed a flag with the number 100 to sport as he did the burnout.

Kevin Harvick was runner up with Kasey Kahne third, Stenhouse Jr. fourth and Aric Almirola coming in fifth.

Kahne and Almirola made a good showing for JR Motorsports with Kahne driving the No. 7 GoDaddy.com car and Almirola in the GT Vodka No. 88.

Racing was exciting and we can only imagine it was a preview of things to come when the Cup drivers hit the track with only eight races until the Chase.

Stewart-Haas Racing will fill the front row for the Lenox Tools Industrial 301 with Ryan Newman on the pole and Tony Stewart as his wing man.

Tension is running high with the Cup drivers as wins become critical. Stewart has got to be favored to finally get a win, but Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon may well be in Victory Lane.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. needs to get his mojo back with the team before he slides out of Chase contention, but once again he qualified poorly and will start 27th.

Johnson starts behind Junior in 28th, but has a fast car and it remains to be seen if the No. 88 team got a handle on their car.

So much at stake and time is running out. We have seen some long green runs at NHMS, but certainly toward the end of the race mayhem will break out.

Tempers will be short, drivers will get mad, pit strategy will be tested and the NASCAR Sprint Cup race should be a good show.