His first year on the job as executive vice president and general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway nearly complete, Jerry Gappens took some time to reflect on the weekend that just was at his facility.

That included not only the first race in the Chase, last Sunday's Sylvania 300 won by Greg Biffle, but also a pre-race visit from U.S. Presidential candidate John McCain and the usual scrutiny any track operator in the Speedway Motorsports Inc. family faces from fans and enigmatic SMI chief executive officer Bruton Smith.

“

NASCAR fans are the greatest in the world. [They] continue to amaze me. They are very loyal to this sport and very passionate about it.

”

-- JERRY GAPPENS

Q: You had to fight through some weather, but it seemed like all ended well in the long run last weekend at your track. How did you think it all went?

Gappens: I think it was an excellent race both on track and off. I thought the Cup guys put on a great show Sunday. We had side-by-side racing, we had lead changes, we even had a couple times where they were four-wide in certain parts of the track, especially on restarts. I thought the on-track product was excellent.

And from an event standpoint, we had the challenges of the weather and then having a visit from Sen. McCain. Running for president and being the high-profile person that he is, that presented a different challenge for us. Our staff stepped up and did an excellent job of working around those challenges, and other little things behind the scenes that no one would ever know about, to put on a great event. The fans walked away happy. The rain certainly can put a damper on things, especially when you start out the way we did -- with qualifying and everything washed out on Friday. Saturday's card was a race fan's dream with all the racing and activities we had on. So the initial feedback from fans and everyone has been very positive.

Q: It seemed most of the fans weren't deterred in any way by the weather, which was really bad with it pouring down throughout the morning there on race day. Were you impressed by that?

Gappens: That's why I think NASCAR fans are the greatest in the world. I've been to different markets with different other stick-and-ball type sports, where there are some fickle fans -- where either the team has got to be winning or the weather has to be perfect and sunny and other variables just right for them to even go and participate. Race fans continue to amaze me. They are very loyal to this sport and very passionate about it. (Continued)