‘Magic Mile’ is a Key Thread Weaving Through Series History

With 69 races having been held there since the track opened in 1990, no venue is more synonymous with the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East than New Hampshire Motor Speedway. And when the 70th race is completed at the track on Saturday afternoon, the winner of the United Site Services 70 will put their name amongst elite company in the record books.

The hub of speedway racing in New England, the 1.058-mile oval seating nearly 100,000 people is the largest sporting venue in the region and it has celebrated some of stock car racing’s biggest names in its Victory Lane. Maine native Ricky Craven, Martin Truex Jr., Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano, Jeff Burton, and multi-time series champions Jamie Aube, Brad Leighton, Mike Olsen and Andy Santerre have all won races at the track. NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Kyle Larson won the 2012 event — one of five drivers since 2007 to win at NHMS and take home the title in the same year — along with last year’s winner and current NASCAR Camping World Series championship points leader William Byron.

In fact, so significant is the list of K&N Pro Series East winners at NHMS that nine of the 10 drivers named to the series’ Top 10 Drivers of the First 25 Years of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series in 2011 all won races there.

While the series held its first races in 1987, NHMS opened just three years later and became a staple, hosting as many as four races a year through the end of the 1999 season. Events at The Magic Mile remain significant to this day with the annual series’ stop at the track coming as a companion event to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race each summer.

NASCAR PR