Mike Helton makes an un-announced visit to N4Nites

Friday June 25, 2010 NASCAR President Mike Helton slipped his way into Pikes Peak International Speedway last Friday night to watch the N4Nites Nationwide Series race as part of a mid season evaluation of the league.

He blended in well with the crowd and had gone un-noticed by the fans and race teams.   The purpose of his visit was to see how the N4Nites drivers were doing at the midway point of the 2010 season.  If he would have shown up at the midway point, which would have been back on May 21st at Riverside, he would have watched a great race that had only 2 cautions.   However, that didn't happen, instead he watched a race that had a total of 11 cautions.   He saw 10 skilled drivers slipping and sliding all over the place and running into each other.   He saw a race that seemed to last forever.  This may very well have been the worst race ever at N4Nites.  The pace car was just 2 laps short of leading the most laps.  John Boneske, driver of the #49 car led the most laps with 47.  The pace car led 45 laps, not including the pace lap at the beginning of the race.

"This just isn't like these guys, I know they are better than this" said Helton.  "This just had to be a bad night for all of them."

Looking back to the previous week, the race at Martinsville had 8 cautions for a total of 19 cautions in the last 2 races at N4Nites.  A record high for the N4Nites Racing League for cautions in two consecutive races.

Mid-Season League Evaluation
A little more than halfway through the 2010 season, all in all, the racing here at N4Nites has improved in many ways.  The new drivers that have joined the league are all fitting in with the veteran drivers very well.  They are very talented, mature and race cleanly.  They have all the qualities that make racing competitive and most of all fun.

This season N4Nites went to 40% races versus 35% like last year.  We also went a step further and went froma pitstop frequency of 2X to 3X.  The 3X pit frequency has taught the drivers that they need to refine their setups for the additional tire wear and become more efficient while pitting.

N4Nites is proud to welcome Dennie Daniels, Matthew Farrell, Jimmy Fox, Joe Morabito, Ronnie Perryman Rick Porter and Alex Shoemaker to our great league.

All in all, even with the 19 cautions in the last 2 races, and some problems with drivers intentionally causing cautions earlier in the year, N4Nites gets an A- at this point in the season.

N4Nites Website
N4Nites has also gone to using RPM to manage our carfiles, race stats and points standings, a job that used to take hours doing manually.  The race results and points standings are posted online immediately after each race.

We have a new website that is simple to navigate and is kept up to date daily.  This year, we began running every race through Replay Analyzer and posting the results on the website for everyone to look at in the form of a 'Race Recap'.  There is a lot of valuable information in the recaps if you know what to look for.

We welcome your input on what you would like to have on our website.  We try to put every tool that we can on the site so drivers have a 'one stop', all in one place to download from.  If there is something you know of that we don't have, please send an email to the webmaster with your recommendations.

Looking Into The Future
Two weeks ago, a poll was started on the home page asking you drivers to vote on whether we stick to the Truck Series for the 1st third of the season, Nationwide Series for the 2nd third and Sprint CUP Series for the last third of the season OR go back to strictly the Sprint CUP Series for the 2011 season.

As of today, Tuesday June 29th, there are 7 votes for sticking with how we are running it this season and 6 votes for going back to strictly the Sprint CUP Series.  The last day to cast your vote will be this Friday, July 2nd.  Be on the lookout for another poll after this Fridays race.