Sta-Green 200 Preview - Speedway Digest

The NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) heads from the high banks of Daytona to the 1.058 New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend.

Last Friday’s race at Daytona was a big momentum booster for JR Motorsports by securing a 1-2 finish in the race. Kasey Kahne won his first NNS race in seven years with Regan Smith coming home in second. The margin of victory was a scant .021 seconds.

The top four Nationwide Series regulars in the race (Regan Smith, Ryan Sieg, Ryan Reed and Jeremy Clements) will compete for the first race in the Dash-4-Cash program with the highest finishing driver at Loudon receiving a $100,000 bonus.

Smith is the only driver of the four who has a NNS win on the season by winning the season opener at Daytona in February.

He will also have a different teammate this weekend in Austin Theriault. The 20-year-old driver is scheduled to drive the No. 5 car in his second of three scheduled races for JR Motorsports.

Since Theriault’s last NNS start at Iowa back in May, he ran an ARCA race at Michigan in June and won in his ARCA debut for the Venturini Motorsports team.

This is a home game for Theriault, who hails from Maine.

With new drivers getting their taste of the Magic Mile, the Cup drivers will once again be the ones to beat.

Kyle Busch heads into the race weekend as the only repeat winner at Loudon with four NNS wins at the track. He is also the defending race winner at the track.

There were 23 different winners in the first 23 NNS races at Loudon until Busch won his second race at the Magic Mile in 2010.

Brad Keselowski will also make his first start in NNS at the Magic Mile since 2012. The last time he raced at Loudon in the No. 22 NNS car he won.

On the subject of past winners, Matt Kenseth won the race in 2004.

Rookie drivers Ty Dillon, Chase Elliott and Dylan Kwasniewski could also make some noise in Saturday’s race. Elliott and Kwasniewski both have prior experience at New Hampshire in the NASCAR K&N East Series.

Other drivers still looking for their first NNS win of 2014 are Trevor Bayne and Brian Scott. Bayne finished runner-up to Kyle Busch at Dover in May and Scott has a best finish of fifth three times, most recently at Michigan in June.

Scott’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, Paul Menard, returns to NNS for the first time since Kentucky two weeks ago. Menard won his first NNS race since 2006 at Michigan in June.

The green flag for the Sta-Green 200 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway will drop at 3:30 p.m. ET and the race will be shown live on ESPN2.

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Kyle Magda

Currently, I’m a journalism student in college who enjoys the sport of racing. I've been following NASCAR in-depth since 2001.Along with my love of racing, I’m also into baseball, football (college & pro), and college basketball.I also have my own website, The Life of Kyle, where I write about various topics.And to get my feet wet into radio, I have my own show called Overdrive. I started it with my friend. Since we can’t record together most of the time, we have our own versions. I cover NASCAR and ARCA, and he takes Formula One and IndyCar.Not forgetting to mention, I have my own YouTube channel as well.As for race tracks, I’ve gone to races at Pocono, Watkins Glen, Daytona, Dover, Loudon and a few local short tracks as well. I hope to cross the Indianapolis 500 off my list in the future. I hope to become a man of many hats.