Ford Performance – 2024 New Hampshire Advance

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The regular season rolls on this weekend as two of NASCAR’s top three touring series head to New England as New Hampshire Motor Speedway hosts the NASCAR Xfinity and NASCAR Cup Series this weekend. The Magic Mile has been a yearly fixture since 1993 with Ford winning a combined 25 times

(17 Cup and 8 Xfinity).

BLANEY CLINCHES PLAYOFF SPOT

Ryan Blaney clinched a playoff spot with his dominating performance at Iowa Speedway last weekend, leading a career-high 201 laps in the 350-lap event. The defending NASCAR Cup Series champion joins fellow Ford drivers Brad Keselowski (Darlington) and Austin Cindric (Gateway) as automatic qualifiers. The Iowa victory also completed a trifecta for Blaney, who has now won in all three of NASCAR’s top divisions at the short track. He won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race there in 2012 and the NASCAR Xfinity Series event in 2015.

95 AND COUNTING

Blaney’s win on Sunday night also marked the 95th victory for Team Penske with Ford. Rusty Wallace scored the organization’s first win when he took the checkered flag at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, NC, in 1994. Team Penske won 27 races from 1994-2002 and then returned to Ford in 2013 with Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano. Since then, they’ve added a third car with Ryan Blaney and have won 68 times. Seven different drivers have won at least one race with Team Penske and Ford with Logano leading the way (30).

TEAM PENSKE ALL-TIME FORD WINNERS

Joey Logano (30)
Brad Keselowski (26)
Rusty Wallace (23)
Ryan Blaney (10)
Jeremy Mayfield (3)
Austin Cindric (2)
Ryan Newman (1)

HOME SWEET HOME

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is the home track for New England native Joey Logano and he’s definitely had his share of success with two NASCAR Cup Series victories, including the first of his career in 2009. Logano added another win in 2014 with Ford and in 25 starts has an average finishing position of 14.1. He’s been particularly consistent in recent years, entering Sunday’s race with six top-10 runs in the last seven Loudon events.

Ryan Blaney: “I feel like we’ve always had good runs there, we just haven’t finished. I thought we were in contention to win last year and had a pit road deal at the end of the race and took us out of it, but I thought us and the 19 were probably the best cars there last year. I enjoy it. I’ve always wanted to hold the lobster ever since I was a kid. The area is great. I love the fans. I love the weather up there. It’s nice this time of year. When it gets six months down the road I probably won’t like it as much when there’s three feet of snow up there, but that place is awesome and I feel like it’s a good test for Phoenix. There are some things you can take away from that place that can help you down the road.”

Joey Logano: “That’s one track I’m probably more excited about than any other one coming up, for sure. It’s a great track for us. I’d say it’s Paul Wolfe’s best track as a crew chief. I can’t say I ran really well there until Paul set up my car, so I’d say it’s a really good track for him. I feel confident going there, for sure.”

Todd Gilliland: “I’m excited for New Hampshire. It’s maybe a Gateway type of racetrack and I thought we ended up having fairly good speed and McDowell got the pole over there. I’m excited for it. Our cars have speed it seems like at some point throughout every race weekend it’s just about hitting that more consistently throughout the whole weekend. My crew chief is from up there and a couple of my team guys are from the northeast, so we’re gonna have a lot of friends and family up there. That brings a little added pressure, but also a lot of excitement around that race.”

Noah Gragson: “I hope it will be like Phoenix. We had a lot of speed at Phoenix and felt like we had a good car. I’ve kind of struggled at New Hampshire and been hit or miss there. There are a lot of different options on how you can approach the corners, if you want to run low through the corner or drive in low and straight into a diamond, or you can really arc it out and turn down into the center and leave low, so there are a lot of options as a driver. It’s a tough, challenging, flat racetrack and kind of hard to pass, but we had speed at Phoenix so hopefully it will be close to that.”

WEEKEND SWEEP

Brad Keselowski had a weekend to remember as he became the first driver to sweep a NASCAR Xfinity and NASCAR Cup Series race weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, achieving the feat on July 12-13, 2014. Keselowski led 138 of 305 laps, including the final two under a green-white-checkered finish, to beat Kyle Busch to the finish line. The win was Ford’s fourth straight series win, marking the first time that had happened since 2001.

BURTON LEADS EVERY LAP

Jeff Burton is the last driver to lead every lap of a NASCAR Cup Series race when he did it on Sept. 17, 2000 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Bobby Labonte started from the pole, but Burton grabbed the lead after starting on the outside of the front row. Even though Labonte and Dale Earnhardt challenged him throughout the day, Burton never gave up the lead, becoming the first driver to lead every lap of a series race since Cale Yarborough did it in the Music City USA 420 at Nashville Speedway on June 3, 1978. The race, which was run with the use of restrictor plates, ended under caution after Sterling Marlin was involved in an accident with three laps remaining. It was Burton’s fourth win at the speedway and concluded a stretch that saw him win four consecutive seasons at the Magic Mile.

OWNER/DRIVER FIRST

Ford’s first NASCAR Cup Series win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway came in the track’s second year of hosting events in 1994. That’s when Ricky Rudd outdueled Dale Earnhardt in the closing laps to post his 15th career win. Rudd led 55 laps on the day, but won it after a memorable side-by-side battle with seven laps to go in which he passed Earnhardt on the inside, only to see the black No. 3 crossover and pull alongside for the next lap. Rudd eventually pulled in front and held on to take the Slick 50 300 on July 10, 1994. Rudd went on to post 23 NSCS wins in his career and had at least one victory in 16 consecutive seasons (1983-98), but none may have been as satisfying as this one because it marked his first triumph as an owner/driver.

CUSTER CLINGING TO POINTS LEAD

It’s the slimmest of margins, but the lead is the lead and that’s what Cole Custer has on the field as he continues to sit on top of the series point standings heading into this weekend’s race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Custer, who took the lead after the race in Portland, holds a one-point advantage on Chandler Smith and has a top 10 finish in 12 of the last 13 events. He’s coming off a sixth-place run at Iowa Speedway and looks to continue a similar streak at NHMS, where he has a pole and three top-10 finishes in four career series starts.

Ford Performance PR

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