LOUDON, N.H. – New Hampshire International Speedway owner Bob Bahre received thumbs up from the drivers at the Busch (Grand National) 200 and Busch North 125 races on Saturday after they became the first drivers to try out his newly configured track.

Bahre widened the Magic Mile by 12 feet in two areas, one between turns one and two and the other between turns three and four, to create an additional racing groove.

“It’s a lot better,” said veteran Winston Cup driver Todd Bodine, who finished second in the Busch 200. “It isn’t a groove you can race on but it’s a groove you can use. It’s a lane that’s there to pass. You can do things with it. You can run across it. Hats off to the Bahres for doing something to make it better and they definitely made it better.

“It had to have been a lot better race to watch. I know it was a lot better to race. [Winner] Bobby [Hamilton Jr.] came up there and had a better car. He just passed us all and that’s the sign of a racetrack you can do things with,” added Bodine referring to Hamilton’s climb up through the pack in the latter stages of the race.

“The old Loudon, Bobby wouldn’t have been able to do that,” Bodine added. “He’d have worked for 15 laps to get [pass] one car instead of working for two or three laps to get one car and two or three laps to get another car. So it definitely was a lot better race.”

Bodine said it will be incredible when the Winston Cup cars return.

“I’ll tell you what’s going to be awesome is watching the modifieds here. That’s going to be incredible to watch,” he said.

The featherlite modifieds, the Busch North series and the New England 300 Winston Cup races will be held on July 20-21.

“What an awesome feeling it is to drive down into the corner at Loudon underneath somebody like Andy [Santerre] like I was doing and you know you’re not going to drive up into the guy’s rear quarter. The track had a lot of grip. It was money well-spent. Bob and Gary [Bahre] and all the engineers should be praised for what they did out there,” said Brad Leighton of Center Harbor, N.H., who edged Santerre by .021 of a second to win the Busch 125.

Mike McLaughlin, who finished fifth in the Busch 200, said, “It’s a little more forgiving than it used to be but it’s pretty much the same deal. You can use a little more of the apron than you could before. You have to give the Bahres credit for making a change. The more racing that’s done here, the more rubber that will be put down and the groove will come in even better.”

Scarborough’s Joe Bessey, who finished 25th in the Busch 200, said “they put some lines down on the track Friday night that we used as reference points and they helped a bunch. The track had decent grip and there was definitely more real estate out there.”

Benjamin, Heath satisfied with races

Two of the youngsters on the Busch North tour are 23-year-old Travis Benjamin of Morrill and 26-year-old Carey Heath of Eliot, the only woman in the series.

Benjamin finished 19th and Heath was 20th in the Busch 125. They were one lap off the pace.

“I was very happy with how we ran. We had a lot of problems in practice,” said Benjamin, explaining that he tried to save money by not putting in a new clutch or new brakes in the new car given to him by Winston Cup driver Ricky Craven of Newburgh.

“It came back to bite me because we lost a lot of practice time,” Benjamin said.

He said there was a vibration in the car throughout the race and the car was tight.

“For all the problems we had, we came out with the car in one piece and we’ll head to Nazareth next week,” added Benjamin.

Heath said, “We’re happy. This is only the second time we’ve run here. We came out in one piece. I don’t have much experience on mile-length tracks.”