New Hampshire Motor Speedway looks, on the surface at least, to be a fairly straightforward oval track. The paperclip-shaped oval is as flat as a pool table (by oval track standards) and fairly wide, so what could go wrong?

Plenty, and none of it is easily solved, according to the last crew chief to celebrate in Victory Lane at The Magic Mile.

Gil Martin guided Clint Bowyer to his first career Sprint Cup Series victory last September at New Hampshire, and he did it quite handily in the current car. Still, Martin knows the limitations of NASCAR's current machine at a place like New Hampshire.

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Since these cars have such a tendency to roll like they do, the toughest part to me is that you still have that swell or bump or dip off Turn 2 into the back straightaway. That dip will suck you into the wall if you're not into it straight and you're running the extreme high line.

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GIL MARTIN

"Obviously, with the track being so flat at New Hampshire, you're constantly fighting a push because it's wanting to roll over so bad, and these cars want to inherently roll over anyway," Martin said. "Just getting the car to stay on the left side and drive up off the corner without having a lot of wheel in it so you can keep forward bite is a major problem at Loudon every time."

That's the major problem: how to get a wider, taller car to turn left consistently without the advantage of left-side weight and aero fixes that had been used for years. So, how is it done?

"Everybody is trying different spring packages, big springs in the right-rear and things of that nature, and I imagine you're going to see a lot of them trying the cocked rear end this weekend," Martin said. "I've yet to see if that's going to work there or not, and it might work just fine, but people are going to try a lot of crazy things at Loudon to try and make it turn."

Martin said that the fact the new car is more neutral in its weight distribution leaves precious few things that will work.

"The problem is that these cars don't have the left-side weight that our old cars had, and that's causing them to want to roll, and the center of gravity is higher and that causes them to want to roll," he said. "The things you have at your disposal to try and get it to not roll over are basically more spring in the right side of the car or a lot of rebound in your shocks on the left side. There are a lot of things that you can do, but that's not really what you want to do in terms of the handling characteristics. There's a fine line to how much you're going to resist roll and just deal with it."

Such is life with the new machine, and everyone has the same problems to solve. That makes for an unpredictable race. The pattern of late has been a lot of green-flag racing early and a lot of cautions late.

"That race goes through a lot of different transitions," Martin said. "It seems like for years there's been a lot of green-flag racing there, so you want to set it up to go good on a long green run. There have been several races where you have to make green-flag stops there and you wouldn't think you'd have to, so we're going to concentrate on long green-flag runs.

"With that being the case, you have to have a scenario to what you can do at the end of the race in case there's a green-white-checkered or 10-lap shootout or whatever. In practice, you may have to work on some different air-pressure scenarios too."

Tires should not be a problem this weekend, Martin said, and Goodyear's left-side tires are a bit softer than they have been at other tracks.

"It's actually really good on tires, and I think Goodyear is going to bring a tire that's a little bit softer on the left side to give these cars a little more stability in the corner," he said. "It's not a lot different, but it's going to be a little bit softer. The cars are going to drive a little better, but for them to drive really good they're going to have to be a whole lot softer."

Long green-flag runs tend to put a lot of cars laps down, and with its tendency toward that, Martin said it will affect strategy in a big way.

"At a place like that it's going to be determined by how many cars are on the lead lap. If a bunch of cars miss it [the setup] like they did last time, you'll put a lot of cars down a lap and you're going to come in and get some tires if there's only 10 or 12 cars on the lead lap. But if there're 30 cars on the lead lap, you're going to have a scenario where I'm sure a lot of the crew chiefs will have on their box, like we do, when your absolute drop-dead last stop is going to be during the race."

NHMS is flatter than most tracks, and with long straightaways and relatively sharp corners, it stands to reason that it would be tough on both the engines and the brakes.

Not really, Martin said.

"It's not that big a scenario for the engine because it's an increasing RPM track," Martin said. "At a lot of the places we go, like Michigan and some others, you'll run a sustained RPM and that's harder on the engine than a track like New Hampshire. Unlike Martinsville, where you're going to come off the corner with a 650 rear gear and the RPMs are going to jump up immediately, it takes a while for the RPMs to work through the range there."

The brakes are problematic at most tracks because the new car is not as efficient at cooling them as the old car was, but Martin said it's more a matter of balance at NHMS.

"It's not hard on brakes, but you need to have good balance," he said. "That's one of the tracks where a lot of rear brake comes into play, so getting the car to slow down and brake straight is good there. The brakes have an opportunity to cool off quite a bit because the straightaways are so long, and it's a fine balance between how much tape you have on the front of the car to keep some heat in the brakes.

"A lot of people think you want to keep the brakes as cold as possible, but as people are finding out, you want to keep at least some heat in them to keep the rotors from warping and cracking. Everybody finds a fine balance with the tape on the front."

The area off Turn 2 onto the back straight is the "Bermuda Triangle" at NHMS, according to Martin.

"Since these cars have such a tendency to roll like they do, the toughest part to me is that you still have that swell or bump or dip off Turn 2 into the back straightaway," he said. "When these cars get into that, you really need to be pointed straight with the car right there. If you're in the least little bit yawed out, you'll get into the wall right there pretty easily. That dip will suck you into the wall if you're not into it straight and you're running the extreme high line."

Look for any number of scenarios to play out on Sunday, and see who solves the many problems of running well the best. He'll be the guy in Victory Lane.