Written by Gabriel Tsui, Edited by Tarun Suresh
After an emotional win for Ryan Blaney in Iowa, we head further east towards the beautiful white mountain state of New Hampshire for the 18th race of the season. With Blaney joining the list of drivers that qualified for the playoffs, the available playoff spots shrink yet again.
Will any of the playoff drivers take another win to add to their arsenal of playoff points, or would one of the drivers currently outside of the playoffs secure their ticket to the round of 16?
Track Preview
The New Hampshire Motor Speedway, located in Loudon, New Hampshire, is a mile-long oval race track. The track facilities were originally built in 1964, with the sole purpose of being a road course race track.
However, in 1990, it was rebuilt into a multi-purpose track with an oval and a road course after being bought out. In a few years after the track was revamped, NASCAR added New Hampshire to the calendar and it hasn’t been taken off ever since.
The track has a distance of 1.06 miles, with a progressive banking from two to seven degrees on the corners. The drivers will be driving 301 laps around the track, with 75 laps in the first stage, 110 laps in the second stage, and 116 laps in the final stage, totalling a distance of 318.5 miles run around the track.
There is a possibility of rain on the weekend, so there might be a delay going into the weekend. However, if everything goes as planned, the race will commence on Sunday, June 23rd, at 14:30 ET (11:30 PT, 20:30 CET).
Race Predictions
After the win in Iowa, the Fords must be on cloud nine right now. After a very poor start to the first half of the season, they flipped the script after the all-star break, winning two of the last four races.
After sending Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric, and Ryan Blaney to the playoffs, they would certainly hope to add a few more drivers to that list, including the 2022 champion Joey Logano. They have experience at the track, having won four in a row from 2018 to 2021.
On the other side, however, the Toyotas have dominated the track ever since the switch to next-gen cars, winning in both 2022 and 2023 by Christopher Bell and Martin Truex Jr respectively. They have been a bit quiet ever since May, with only a win by Bell in a shortened Charlotte 600.
In a track where they have a certain familiarity, they will be looking to get a win for one of their drivers currently not in the playoffs projections, and the odds will be mostly in their favour.
Therefore, the prediction is one of the Toyota drivers taking the win, but by a narrow margin.