New Hampshire Motor Speedway has long been nicknamed the “Magic Mile.” It seems like every mile-long track needs to have some kind of alliterative nickname. Dover is the “Monster Mile.” The now-defunct track at the New York State Fairgrounds was the “Moody Mile.” In Milwaukee, the track is literally called “The Milwaukee Mile Speedway.”
2024 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
While some seem appropriate and some don’t, the “Magic Mile” is about as perfect as they come, especially when talking about the finishes that the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour seems to have at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on what seems like an annual periodicity. .
Whether you watched the racing in the stands at Loudon on a Saturday night or on the FloRacing broadcast, you’ve seen it. You have felt it. The dirt shots in New Hampshire are truly magical.
The last two years alone have provided some of the most memorable finishes in the history of the series and the track.
In 2022, it was Anthony Nocella who went from fourth place to victory in a distance of perhaps 100 yards when Patrick Emerling and Eric Goodale crashed in front of him. Nocella edged Kyle Bonsgnore across the finish line by 0.071 seconds to earn his first Magic Mile win.
And then a year later, it was a battle of champions. Three-time champion Justin Bonsignore held off a charge from now two-time champion Ron Silk down the stretch, and then a run by six-time champion Doug Coby to the line to win by 0.045 seconds.
But if you dig a little deeper, you will see that this is normal here. We went back to 2012 and checked the margin of victory for the last 20 races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and the average margin of victory for the 16 races that ended under green flag conditions is a remarkable 0.199 seconds.
Think about that for a second. At the end of 100 laps (or more with green, white and checkered), the distance between first and second is usually less than the length of two cars. That is incredible. Or maybe it’s magic.
In fact, when you look at those finishes, only twice has the margin of victory been greater than half a second. Ironically, Bobby Santos III was the winner each time, and he did it in back-to-back races in 2017. But while they weren’t photo finishes, those two races were exciting as Santos made the winning move. with four or fewer laps remaining in both races.
See: Justin Bonsignore defeats Doug Coby in photo final in New Hampshire
Since we’re talking magic, that’s actually the perfect way to describe Santos at Loudon, where the driver from Franklin, Massachusetts, has visited victory lane six times. In those six victories, Santos has led a total of only 45 of the 600 scheduled laps. Better yet, he led more than five laps in only two of those wins. In the second race of 2017, Santos led 10 laps and in 2020 he led 24. But in his other four wins, Santos led one lap, two laps, three laps and five laps. Magic.
In one of the closest finishes of all time in NASCAR, the late great Mike Stefanik barely beat Ron Silk, who was the defending series champion at the time, by just 0.003 seconds in July 2012.
I was present that day sitting in the stands at turn one and I can still remember the reaction of the stunned crowd. Everyone was losing their minds over the fight between Stefanik in the No. 66 and Silk in Eddie Partridge’s white and blue No. 6, but it took a few minutes for everyone to realize who won the race.
But the truth is that it didn’t matter who won that day, because we all came away feeling the same. A sense of wonder? Maybe. A sense of disbelief? Sure. But we all felt the magic in the New England air as we walked back to our cars in the parking lots.
Watch: Anthony Nocella survives last-lap crash to win at New Hampshire.
Okay, maybe there’s no real “magic” behind why these races are so crazy and the finishes are so crazy. The real magic is in the restrictor plates that are meant to keep speeds down, but also group cars together. But does it matter?
Ask any of the 30 drivers entered in Saturday’s race which track they want to win the most. Everyone will tell you the same answer, but in two different ways. They’ll say “New Hampshire Motor Speedway” or they’ll say “The Magic Mile.” Then everyone will say “because this is our Daytona 500. This is our biggest stage.”
And it is not its most important stage because it is a complementary weekend with the NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series. The Modifieds share the stage with those guys and gals at Richmond Raceway and Martinsville Speedway as well.
It’s their biggest stage, the Daytona 500, because of the finishes. These finishes are shown again and again. And with that, the names of the winners are said over and over again. Legends are made in Loudon.
On Saturday afternoon we will remember it once again. We’ll see another wild ending and then we’ll all leave the NHMS parking lots on Route 106 feeling the same.
Modified. New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It’s a magical combination.
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