LOUDON -- Derry's John Allen staked out a fine spot in the staging area for campers headed onto the New Hampshire Motor Speedway grounds on Friday afternoon.

A fan of everything Earnhardt — the tattooed Nos. 3, 8 and 88 on his left shoulder define his devotion — Allen was on a front-row mission. He was bound for “The Cove,” a popular spot in the “S” lot where he planned to set up his RV.

“It’s an awesome place,” he said. “Everyone in ‘The Cove’ has been there the last 10 years or so. It’s always the same gang.”

At least part of the gang was gathering early.

It was, mind you, not quite 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

Saturday’s 6 a.m. “rope drop” when campers are allowed to drive in and set up was still 14 hours away.

Allen and the drivers of the other 50 or so RVs already lined up — the numbers kept growing — wanted to make sure they were on time for the party: The Lenox Industrial Tools 301 race at was NHMS still nine days off.

Yes, it’s Sprint Cup Race Week in New Hampshire.

Jerry Gappens, the executive vice president and general manager at the Speedway, and a couple of his folks spent three hours on Friday morning touring the campgrounds and parking lots and other facilities at NHMS, giving it one last check before opening the gates.

“Every day’s a process between mowing grass and weed eating and just little things like that,” Gappens said. “It’s making sure the toilet seats are tight, the water’s flushing and the air conditioners are working. If you expect things to work, you need to inspect them before it gets to race time. Whether it’s a scoreboard, or our timing systems, you have to find out. You don’t want to be surprised.”

Workers at the facility spent much of Thursday cleaning up and putting banners back up from what Gappens called a small microburst that hit late on Wednesday.

“It did some cosmetic damage but nothing structural and certainly nothing that would be considered a showstopper,” Gappens said. “We got about an inch and quarter of water in about 15 minutes and were without power for 13 hours.”

Better last week than this.

Last year’s July Sprint Cup race came up 3-4,000 fans short of a sellout, Gappens said.

As of Friday morning’s report, about 7,800 tickets remained for Sunday’s event and some 100,000 fans will again fill the Speedway’s stands, see the Marshall Tucker Band perform pre-race and then watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the rest of NASCAR’s stars tangle for 301 laps.

“I think we’ll be close (to a sellout),” Gappens said.

Action kicks off on Thursday and admission is free.

The only on-track action that day will be Global RallyCross practice from 8:30 to 11 a.m.

FanFest runs from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Thursday night and features the traditional Sprint Cup hauler parade at 6 p.m., question and answer sessions with A.J. Allmendinger at 7 and Ryan Truex at 7:45 and a concert by the Eric Grant Band.

The first Sprint Cup practice goes from noon-1:30 p.m. on Friday and qualifying for the Cup race is at 3:40 that day.

Qualifying for the F.W. Webb 200 Nationwide race is Saturday at 10:05 a.m. The Town Fair Tire Whelen Modified race is set for 1 p.m. on Saturday and the Nationwide race for 3:30.

The Global RallyCross race closes out the day on Saturday at 7 and extreme sports star Travis Pastrana will be among those competing in the first-time event here. Gappens hopes a bunch of fans hang around after the Nationwide Race, or come back in from the campgrounds, for the Rally Cross race. Like the Nationwide race, it will be live on ESPN.

Pastrana is also running in the Nationwide race.

On Friday afternoon, workers in Turns 1 and 2 constructed ramps that will be used in the rally race. A gap jump that was part of the event in the X Games was on its way from Los Angeles and due at any time.

Danica Patrick, too, will be in the Nationwide race. She finished 31st in the Nationwide race at Daytona on Friday night and is ninth in points in her first fulltime season in the series.

“We’re up about 32 percent with advanced sales for Saturday,” Gappens said. “Two years ago when she raced in the Nationwide race we were up 33 percent and last year when she didn’t we were down 28 percent,”

He expects a crowd of about 50,000 on Saturday.

As for John Allen in ‘S’ lot, he was dropping his RV off and plans to return on Thursday and looks forward especially to seeing what Earnhardt Jr. can do.

“A championship would be nice,” he said. “And I’d like to see him win a race up here. There are more 88s than anything else up here.”

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Matt Frahm of North Salem plans to run in his second straight NHMS Nationwide race on Saturday for Go Green Racing out of Maine. Frahm made his debut in the series in last July’s race and finished 26th after starting 36th. He has run four Nationwide races this season.

Allen Lessels covers motor sports for the New Hampshire Union Leader and Sunday News. He may be reached at alessels@unionleader.com.