Bobby Hamilton Jr.

June 24, 2008 - Bobby Hamilton Jr., driver of the No. 25 Smithfield Food Ford Fusion has one win and four top-10 finishes in six starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The NASCAR Nationwide Series regular racer talks about the passing and track position at the flat one-mile track.

BOBBY HAMILTON JR. – No. 25 Smithfield Foods Ford Fusion – YOU HAVE AN IMPRESSIVE RECORD AT LOUDON WITH FOUR TOP-10 FINISHES AND ONE WIN IN SIX STARTS. IS THIS ONE OF YOUR PREFERRED TRACKS? “Yeah, I got a win there and I’ll run my East car up there, too. It’s a good flat track; it kind of reminds you of Milwaukee and other places that we run good at. But New Hampshire is one of those places that you can really drive the corner hard. If you’ve got good steam, good power, you can be really, really fast there if you can get through the corner. I think we’ll be okay. Just going off the way we have been, we’re looking at about 12th to 15th. I don’t know if we can be a top-10 car or not.

MILWAUKEE IS A FLAT TRACK AND SO IS NEW HAMPSHIRE. IF YOU DO WELL IN MILWAUKEE, DOES THAT MEAN YOU’LL DO WELL AT NEW HAMPSHIRE? “Yeah, the only thing is that New Hampshire is fast as far as the center of the corner, so you’ll do different things as far as chassis, different shocks and things like that. If you run good in Milwaukee, you have a decent race car and that’s about it because you can easier dial yourself out or dial yourself in there. Because the corner speeds are so much faster compared to Milwaukee. It’s just one of those places if you find your way around it and you like it, you should be okay.”

DO YOU LIKE RACING AT LOUDON? “I like it a lot. It’s a little bit hard to pass but at the same time if your car’s good enough it will turn and you’ve got the power of the corner and you hook the power up, it can be a real fun place. It’s kind of like Milwaukee, but a little bit bigger. The corner is a little bit longer in the middle part of it and it’s got tremendous grip. So you can be really, really fast there. It’s similar to Milwaukee.”

IF IT IS HARD TO PASS, TRACK POSITION IS MORE VALUABLE. “Yeah, I think the last one, it was one of those places that you didn’t need to change tires because tires will pick you up enough to be able to pass up through the field. Everybody runs the bottom to middle groove. Nobody runs the outside unless you’re just superb. It’s a normal race track. If you can get out front in clean air and have a decent car, you can get going from the field.”

THE SEASON IS IN FULL SWING WITH A LONG STRETCH OF RACES. HOW DO YOU LIKE THE LONG RUN OF RACES? “It’s just same old, same old. You’ve just got to use each week to get better. For instance, we only race at Milwaukee once a year, so we’re relying on a lot of last year’s notes. If they change anything tire-wise, you’ve just got to do a lot of guessing, but everybody’s in that same boat. As far as having the stretch, everybody is having to deal with the same thing, whether it’s a Cup guy or not. They’re all having to deal with the same schedule, so many weeks on and off. It’s just typical or normal. It doesn’t give you an advantage or anything extra. It’s just many weeks in a row is how you look at it. This is the fast part of the season because before you know it you’ve knocked out a chunk of the season. Then all of sudden it’s ‘Where did this season go? I don’t remember that race,’ because it’s all in that fly by part. It’s just one race at a time, that’s all you can do.”