LOUDON - Travis Pastrana, star of extreme motorsports, thinks being busy on Saturday afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway will help keep his mind off the task he'll face on Saturday night at the track.

Matt Frahm, North Salem's contribution to NASCAR's Sprint Cup weekend at the track, feels the crowded schedule here on Saturday will keep his mind off what's to come as well.

Pastrana and Frahm are both entered in the F.W. Webb Nationwide 200, a race scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 3:30 that features Danica Patrick and Austin Dillon and a field of drivers striving to reach the top-of-the-line Sprint Cup series.

Pastrana will be back after the Nationwide race to compete in the Global RallyCross Championship, a wild event televised on ESPN that comes to NHMS for the first time and involves racing on dirt and over ramps and jumps on a course in one corner of the infield.

“In hindsight, we didn't really know the schedule before we signed up for both,” Pastrana said. “It's difficult, but I like the challenge and it kind of almost gets your mind off things. Instead of pressure you just drive. Just get in the car and drive.”

Pastrana gets a short break after the Nationwide race while the RallyCross course gets set up and then he's right back at it and must deal with a bunch of talented drivers and a course that includes a jump that covers 48 feet of nothing but air.

The key is not being too fast, or too slow, over the jump. Somewhere between 56 and 61 miles per hour, while racing other folks, should do it.

“You have a six-mile variance, which is not that hard if you have a speedometer, but we have no speedometers,” Pastana said. “Three miles an hour too fast, that's what I did and broke the car in half pretty much and couldn't walk for a week when we were at Texas. . . . Going too fast means a broken back. Going too slow means . . . Either way you're out of the race because you've broken the car.”

Pastrana made his Nationwide debut at Richmond in late April and he and Frahm have both raced four times so far this year in the series. Both are looking for sponsorship that will let them race more often.

At this point, Pastrana has two more races scheduled this season in his Boost Mobile Toyota, at Indianapolis on July 28 and at Atlanta on Sept. 1. His best finish was a 17th at Darlington and his other results have been a 22nd, 24th and 26th.

He is also running pretty much fulltime in the K&N Pro Series East.

“I'm definitely in over my head (in Nationwide),” Pastrana said. “But I like it. I'm hoping next year I'll be doing the entire Nationwide series and eventually I'd like to move up to Cup, but first I've got to learn how to win there.”

Frahm ran his first Nationwide race at NHMS here last July and finished 26th, his best mark in six races so far.

“This time, the circumstances are better for me to do better,” Frahm said. “I know what the car can do and can't do. I feel like I can get a better result this time around. I'll try to run in the low 20s, 23, 22. A top 20 would be a win for me. There are some tough people to beat out there. The biggest thing is gaining as much experience as can.”

Qualifying for the Nationwide race is at 10:05 a.m. on Saturday, less than six hours before the race.

Frahm likes getting to qualify the same day as he races.

“When you qualify the day before, you go back to the hotel and all these things go through your head,” he said. “It kind of makes you whacky. I overanalyze things and think, 'Why couldn't we have done this today?' I'm happy with it being the same day.”

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CUP PRACTICE TODAY: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and the rest of NASCAR's best hit the one-mile oval at New Hampshire Motor Speedway at noon Friday to begin on-track preparations for Sunday's Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Cup race.

Matt Kenseth leads the Cup points race and Earnhardt is second, followed by Greg Biffle in third and Jimmie Johnson in fourth.

Stewart, the defending Cup champion, has been making a move and is up to fifth.

The driver of the Mobil 1/Office Depot Chevrolet has been hot not only in the last few weeks and is coming in off a win at Daytona, but he's been hot here, too.

“With him having had such great success at New Hampshire and coming off a big win at Daytona, I think, if anything, he's going to be a little tougher this week,” said Jerry Gappens, executive vice president and general manager at NHMS.

Not exactly a prospect that Stewart's rivals wish to ponder.

He's already been plenty tough.

Including last week's win, Stewart has finished third or better in four of the last five Cup races.

He won the Sylvania 300 here last September, finished second to Stewart/Haas teammate Ryan Newman in the Lenox race last July and was also second in the Sylvania 300 in 2010.

Newman is again doing double duty here. He's racing in the Town Fair Tire 100 Whelen Modified Tour race on Saturday afternoon as well as the Cup race.

He'll be looking for a boost to his Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship chances on Sunday.

Newman is currently 15th in points and would not be in the 12-driver Chase if it started today. He does have a win, though, and is only a point behind Joey Logano, who also has a win and currently holds down a spot in the field. The top 10 drivers in points earn berths in the Chase and two spots go to the drivers with the most wins.

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MODIFIED RIDE: Steve Dickey, 30, of Londonderry — who's been doing the bulk of his racing at Star, Lee and Hudson speedway — plans to run Saturday's Modified race with the help of sponsors including Sterlingwear of Boston and Harold Estey Lumber of Londonderry.

“I got approved by NASCAR, my sponsor bought a car that has been run this year on the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour and here we are — going to Loudon,” Dickey said in a press release. “The goal is to finish the race and gain experience.”

Andy Seuss of Hampstead, a regular on the Southern Modified Tour, is also entered in the race.

Modified qualifying is at 4:45 p.m. today and the race is Saturday at 1 p.m.

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CRAVEN TABBED: Ricky Craven, the Newburgh, Maine, native who made his mark racing at NHMS and drove for many years on the Cup tour, will drive the pace car for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 as part of the 20th anniversary of the first Cup race at the track. . . . Qualifying for the Cup race is today at 3:40 p.m.

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