LOUDON, N.H. -- The idea was to train one of the elephants to hand the green flag to the starter, a big finish to the first big pre-race show at New Hampshire Motor Speedway under the Speedway Motorsports Inc. banner. The pack of pachyderms was on its way from a show in Missouri when track general manager Jerry Gappens received the telephone call from a Granite State official, asking: Do you have the proper permits?

"A guy called us form the state office and said, there are federal things, you've got to get the department of agriculture with a veterinarian for shots, and make sure they're not carrying anything into the state," said Gappens, a former vice president at Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte. "I was like, 'Oh.' The people that handle that and should have know that didn't. Who knew there was permitting for elephants, for crying out loud? I've used them for press conferences in Charlotte before. I was like, what do the circuses do? Well, they do the permitting. He said, 'That's normally a two-week process for some of that stuff.' I was like, that's not so good."

So the elephants are out, a minor setback in the Brutonization of New England's lone Sprint Cup venue. Since SMI chairman Bruton Smith bought the 1-mile racetrack from Bob Bahre for $340 million, the changes have been primarily minor and cosmetic -- bigger, brighter signs on Route 106 (two of them with electronic message boards), some painting and paving, a little more branding to remind people just where they are. For the most part this is still the rural, rustic, New Hampshire track we've always known, with its infield restaurant, acres of free parking, sellout crowds and Bahre (now a consultant) in his white dress shirt.

But the elephants are -- or, more precisely, would have been -- harbingers of change, part of a pre-race show featuring motorcycle stunt riders and the rock band Kansas, all of it unlike anything New Hampshire had ever seen, and the largest reminder yet that his little corner of this stoic little state is now part of the flamboyant SMI empire. At its sister track in Charlotte, former president Humpy Wheeler has featured a giant, fire-breathing, car-eating robotic dinosaur and a mock strafing of an enemy village by U.S. military aircraft. At its sister track in Texas, the first thing president Eddie Gossage did after a storm blew down a scoring tower was alert the media. Welcome, New Hampshire. The elephants may not be coming this week, but they'll be here eventually.

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I'm anxious to see it, because I have a great comfort level having worked with him [Bruton Smith] for 15 and a half years and seeing what he's done at these other places. I don't worry about it. I know it's going to be something that people won't recognize in two to five years, and people will be very proud of.

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JERRY GAPPENS

"We're in the entertainment business, and Bruton knows that," Gappens said. "That's the culture of our company. It's not just Charlotte, it's Texas and some other places. That's the culture I was brought up with in this company, and something I certainly thought I could bring with me here. You're competing with so many forms of entertainment, and it's your job to try and go above and beyond the fans' expectations and enhance their experience for the day, and pre-race shows is one of those areas where we can do it."

That culture includes a vision, one of upgrades and improved fan amenities like those found at almost every other SMI track. Three days after he announced in November that he was buying the facility -- which opened in 1990 and has sold out every Cup event it's ever hosted -- Smith had engineers and architects on the ground in Loudon, studying areas for potential improvement. Since then they've been back several times, flying in on Smith's private jet. The boss himself came up a month ago, getting his first good look at his new holding without snow on the ground. Sunday will mark the first race Smith has seen at the track since shortly after it landed NASCAR's premier series, and what he sees could go a long way toward determining what he does with the property.

"Part of this weekend is for him to really absorb it as much as he can," Gappens said. "He wants good aerial photos and everything. He wants to see how the traffic flows in and out, where the pedestrians go, where they congregate. And of course watch the racing, and see what the product on the track looks like, too, and make some more decisions from there. With Bruton, it's a white piece of paper. He can color it anything he wants, and he's done that before. He's moved mountains at Bristol, he's flipped-flopped the configuration at Atlanta, (Las) Vegas is not the same track it was two years ago. He's got an incredible vision, and he understands how to build these places."

He has plenty of options -- leave the racetrack surface as it is and concentrate on building from the concrete walls out, add banking as he did at Las Vegas, flip the frontstretch and backstretch because of the close proximity of the current main grandstand to the highway, as Darlington did many years ago. The idea of adding banking gets a lot of attention because of the type of events this flat, narrow track sometimes produces, the runaway victory by Clint Bowyer last September being a prime example.

"I think it would obviously change it," driver Kevin Harvick said of the prospect of added banking in the corners. "I don't think Bruton's going to do anything to the track to make it worse, by any means. I think he just wants to make the facility better. I like the flatter racetrack, I like the different styles of racetracks that we go to. Richmond is obviously pretty racy, and it's a flatter track. I think he's just probably looking at making improvements to the racetrack in all areas, whether it's a little bit of banking here and there. We'll just leave it in his hands. We don't want another mile-and-a-half racetrack, I think I can speak for most everybody in the garage. We need some shorter tracks like this with maybe some different character."

At this point, Gappens said, Smith has made no decisions. Track officials consulted with several drivers at Bristol earlier this year on the idea of adding banking, and received no clear consensus. One thing, though, is clear -- whatever becomes of New Hampshire will be solely of Smith's doing.

"At the end of the day, Bruton is very comfortable with making the ultimate decision," Gappens said. "He has no problems with that. He jokes that it's a democracy, one man, one vote, and he's the man with the vote. And I believe him. I'm anxious to see it, because I have a great comfort level having worked with him for 15 and a half years and seeing what he's done at these other places. I don't worry about it. I know it's going to be something that people won't recognize in two to five years, and people will be very proud of."

To Gappens, the New Hampshire of today is reminiscent of the Bristol of 12 years ago -- a family-owned track in a rural area, full of people who worried that the new owner's ultimate goal was to move a race somewhere else. When Smith bought the East Tennessee facility from Larry Carrier, it had 60,000 seats. Today it has 160,000 seats, an unrivaled arena-like setting and two rock-solid, automatic-sellout dates on the Sprint Cup calendar. Gappens believes the same thing can happen here.

"I think this could be the Bristol of the New England area," he said, "I really do."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.