NASCAR postpones race until November

Mike Harris

Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001 | 2:48 a.m.

NASCAR called off Sunday's Winston Cup race in New Hampshire because of the terrorist attacks, only the second non-weather postponement in the circuit's 53-year history.

The decision on the New Hampshire 300 followed a move by the NFL to scrap games Sunday and Monday night. The race was rescheduled for Nov. 23, the day after Thanksgiving.

"This is a time for families to come together," NASCAR president Mike Helton said Thursday. "We felt that postponing this weekend's race was simply the right thing to do."

NASCAR also called off its truck race at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday, rescheduling it for Oct. 5. The Indy Racing League, whose season-ending race was scheduled for the Texas track on Sunday, postponed the event until Oct. 6.

Two other weekend races at the New Hampshire International Speedway, in the Featherlite Modified Series and Busch North Series, also were postponed. It was unclear whether they would be rescheduled.

"We hated to cancel, but at the same time you have to think of the people, all the problems they have in New York," said Bob Bahre, whose family owns the New Hampshire track. "I think all our fans will understand, and we'll honor all their tickets."

Besides weather postponements, the only other time NASCAR had called off a Winston Cup race was in 1998. The Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway that year was postponed from July until October because of forest fires in central Florida.

About 4,000 fans in mobile homes had arrived at the New Hampshire speedway before the postponement, some of them as early as last Saturday. The race, the second of the season at the 1-mile oval, attracts about 100,000 fans.

Track workers and vendors had been setting up for the weekend, and the NASCAR officials' truck also had arrived.

None of the drivers for the three races had traveled to the track because Thursday's practices were already called off and the Winston Cup qualifying, scheduled for Friday, was canceled. NASCAR had released a race lineup based on 2001 car owner points.

"At times like this we need to think about our country and the families involved in what happened in New York and Washington," driver Johnny Benson said.

The NFL postponed its 15 Sunday games earlier in the day, and Bahre said that played a role in NASCAR's decision. All major professional and college sports were called off through the weekend.

"If football and a few other things had gone along, I think we would have gone along," Bahre said.

"At this time, I don't think of dollars; I think about what's right. It's the right thing to do."

The race on Nov. 23 now replaces the NAPA 500 on Nov. 18 at Atlanta Motor Speedway as the season-finale and could decide the series title. Three-time champion Jeff Gordon holds a 222-point lead over runner-up Ricky Rudd with 10 races remaining.

"Everybody is going to have to readjust and re-evaluate with the new date, and it's going to probably be pretty cold in New England when we do run," said John Andretti, another Winston Cup star. "But the inconvenience we're facing is pretty slight compared to what so many people have undergone this week in our country."