New Hampshire might want Indy Cars back
Named executive vice president and general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway after Speedway Motorsports, Inc., bought the one-mile Granite State oval from founder Bob Bahre for $340 million last winter, Gappens is a very busy man.
"I haven't been (to the Indy 500) in 16 years," Gappens said. He grew up in Windfall, Ind., watching A.J. Foyt duke it out on a dirt track in nearby Terre Haute on Saturday nights and then tuned to the TV on Sunday to see Foyt, a red-eye jet flight from Indy, rocketing his Indy car around a glitzy paved oval.
Gappens' life in motor sports for a time led him to the Indy 500 pits, where he was a reporter for ABC television. Now he may soon have big news to report regarding the return of Indy cars to New Hampshire.
"I'm going to Indy with the hope of having them back," he said. "It's very intriguing."
In 1992, the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) IndyCar World Series came to Loudon and the three-year-old New Hampshire International Speedway. Big name racing had finally landed in the Granite State. But it wasn't long before the Indy cars became no-name racing.
The last Indy car race at Loudon, in 1998, was won by Tony Stewart under Indy Racing League sanctioning following an ugly Indy car split from CART leadership three years earlier. The rising star Stewart left the splintered, struggling Indy car league in the dust and found fame and fortune through NASCAR — as did Loudon's "Magic Mile." More at Union Leader
[Editor's Note: There has long been rumors that Speedway Motorsports, Inc. would pull one of its New Hampshire dates for a second Las Vegas race. If true, then getting an IndyCar race on the New Hampshire schedule makes sense. However, Indy Car racing has never been popular in the Northeast. They have failed at Langhorne, Trenton Speedway, The Meadowlands, Dover, Pocono and New Hampshire, and the current race at Watkins Glen is hanging on by a thread, so what is going to make it any different this time around? Not much.]