Dave D'Onofrio and Gavin Faretra of the Monitor sports staff sit down to look at the Sprint Cup Series' visit to Las Vegas in the latest installment of Race Day Preview.

Ben Copp catches some air as he takes jumps during Rave X demonstrations. Spectators and participants enjoyed the Sno Bowl at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, February 20, 2010. (Concord Monitor Photo/Sarah Beth Glicksteen)

This Sprint Cup season the Monitor sports staff will preview each weekend on the Friday before each race, beginning with this entry on Sunday's Daytona 500. Be sure to check back each week from here to Homestead for our latest analysis on NASCAR's premier series.

It's race day in Loudon. Along Rte. 106 the grills have been fired, the tops have been popped, and the cars have already begun backing up to the Interstate. Inside New Hampshire Motor Speedway fans are already starting to fill the stands, and the infield is abuzz as teams ready their war wagons and arrange their tires.

Things have quieted for the night here at NHMS, but we'll be back tomorrow with the Sylvania 300. Throughout the race we'll be holding a LIVE, INTERACTIVE chat right here, and we encourage you to join us. Log on in the morning to ask any questions you might have, or make any predictions you might want to offer, and we'll answer tell you what we think, too.

By DAVE D’ONOFRIO
Monitor staff

LOUDON – In a history that spans 61 seasons, and 2,236 races, only three times has a NASCAR driver celebrated his birthday with a Sprint Cup Series victory.
Though the fourth could well be coming this afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where the now-34-year-old driver of the No. 42 Chevrolet certainly looks like the Juan to beat.
A day after winning the pole with a track-record qualifying lap, Juan Pablo Montoya showed his Impala is pretty good in race trim, too, posting the fastest lap in each of the morning’s practices and solidifying himself as the favorite for the Sylvania 300.
There wasn’t a speed chart all weekend on which Montoya’s name wasn’t at the top, starting with Friday’s first practice, then continuing through qualifying and carrying into yesterday, when he put to rest any thought his earlier speed might’ve been the product of a car tricked up for time trials.
In the first session yesterday he made it around the 1.058-mile oval in 29.269 seconds – and still he managed to get faster as the day went on, and the track got heated. During happy hour he turned the track in 29.214 ticks, but most impressive about that run was the distance he left between himself and the next quickest car.
Martin Truex Jr. was second fastest, but he was more than half a mile per hour slower than Montoya, who was the only car to crack 130. Additionally, the speed gap between Montoya and Truex was wider than the gap between Truex and Ryan Newman, who was 12th fastest.
Now the task for Montoya is to keep that advantage – and it won’t be easy, given that most of his fellow Chase for the Cup competition was also quick by the end of yesterday’s session. Kurt Busch was third-fastest, Mark Martin was fourth and Jimmie Johnson fifth. Denny Hamlin (seventh), Jeff Gordon (eighth) and Tony Stewart (10th) made it seven Chasers among the top 10, while Newman (12th), Kasey Kahne (14th), Brian Vickers (18th) were solid as well.
Greg Biffle was 20th, while Carl Edwards was 29th, meaning the Roush Fenway Racing teammates will have some work to do throughout the race today. But then again, as Edwards foresaw on Friday, it looks as though all the Chasers have work to do to catch up with Montoya.
“I think,” Edwards said, “Juan Montoya has just as good a chance as Jimmie Johnson with the way he's been running.”

When it was announced the American-Canadian Tour would race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, some were concerned about whether late models accustomed to much smaller tracks might have trouble on the 1.058-mile oval.

By passing Reggie Ruggiero in the third turn of the final lap, Ron Silk won the New Hampshire 100 in another exhilerating finish for the Whelen Modified Tour this afternoon. Ruggiero had led at the white flag, but Silk slipped underneath the No. 14 as the cars were exiting the backstretch, and blew past it when Ruggiero's ride drifted up the track.

When the Camping World Truck Series takes the track this afternoon, it'll be a familiar face at the front of the field. Mike Skinner won the pole in this morning's qualifying run, edging Kyle Busch by two thousandths of a second.

Welcome to New Hampshire Motor Speedway on this brisk, breezy Saturday morning, when Juan Pablo Montoya has already begun to fortify the believe that he's got the car to beat in tomorrow's Sylvania 300.