Dr. Diandra: New Hampshire Motor Speedway facts and figures

New Hampshire Motor Speedway — sometimes referred to as Loudon after the town in which the track is located — hosted its first NASCAR Cup Series race in 1993. This weekend’s race will be the 51st.

The 1.058-mile track is the flattest oval NASCAR currently visits. The paper-clip shape provides two straightaways of 1,500 feet each, making the track 46.3% turns. The turn radius is the same in all four corners: 450 feet. That’s much smaller than the 741-foot turns the Cup Series ran last week at Atlanta.

The turns are progressively banked from four degrees near the apron to seven degrees by the outside wall. That means that the frontstretch at Las Vegas Motor Speedway has higher banking (nine degrees) than the Loudon turns.

“The straightaways are long at this track and the corners are flat,” Tyler Reddick noted. “It’s a one-mile racetrack, but it races somewhat like a short track with how you break the corner up and how corner entry is important.”

Air pressure is one of the most important tools teams have to help drivers navigate flat corners, along with shock and camber settings. The rash of tire problems has lessened as teams learn how to set up the Next Gen car, but everyone will be watching tire wear during the first few green-flag runs.

Although this is the Cup Series’ first (and only) visit to NHMS this year, teams can leverage information from Phoenix, Richmond and World Wide Technology Raceway. They’re even using the same tire combination they used at those three tracks this year.

Rodney Childers, crew chief for Kevin Harvick, adds Martinsville to the list of reference tracks.

“The paper-clip shape of the track and how tight the corners are and how much shifting is gonna be going on,” Childers said. “It just depends