Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Loudon, NH

This morning, New Hampshire looked more like the fictional town in Rambo than Brigadoon. The trees are lightly kissed by the hint of color against the deep sea of green foliage surrounding the granite all around us. The fog has moved up into the mountains and the remains of last night's rain still lingers on the roads and parking lots. However, the track is dry and there are cars on the track here in Loudon.

But there is a battle about to be waged here in this quiet little town.

The American-Canadian tour cars have been on the track this morning. Right now, the Whelen Modified tour cars are on the track generating that hot air vortex that Darrel Waltrip always says will keep the rain away. Shortly the Sprint Cup cars will take their final practice for the weekend and then Camping World Truck Series will hopefully go green at 3:00 Pm for 175 laps.

The battle today will be on several fronts. Nascar is battling to get the practice and race in and keep to the schedule as much as possible. I think that every track within a 6 hour drive have sent their track dryers to Loudon. I saw a Pocono track dryer and a dryer with a Delaware truck pulling it around so I assumed that was a Dover rig. There are several jet fuel trucks parked around the track, so it looks like Nascar has set as good a defense as they can.

There will be a major battle of the three races scheduled for today. The Whelen Modified is supposed to go off at 12:45 today. That race is always a race with lots of excitement and drama. In July, Ryan Newman won the race and then lost the trophy due to a rule discrepancy with his engine mounts.

The Camping World Truck Series is supposed to go off at 3:00 pm today and that is always a great show no matter the track. The young and old alike in the series are all going for a win and the track is simply not wide enough for everyone to go for first at once.

Finally, at 5:45 the American- Canadian Tour is scheduled to run. (If these cars race at a Canadian track, is it the Canadian-American Tour?) Based on what I saw in practice already, Loudon is going to need all those jet dryers to clear off the debris from the hard racing we hope to see today, if Mr. Waltrip's vortex theory holds the rain off.