Pennsylvania 500 Race Preview

Pocono Raceway -- 08/03/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Thursday Jul 31 2008 4:50am

Here's a safe bet for Sunday's "Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500" in Pocono: It has to be better than last weekend's Brickyard 400, rightΔ

Actually, it's only been 53 days since the Cup series last raced at Pocono, so it should be pretty fresh in your memory. That was race number 14 and this is race number 21 in the 36-race Sprint Cup season.

Kasey Kahne (+485) had the dominant car last time we were here, leading the most laps, 69 of 200, and scoring his first win of the year.

Jimmie Johnson (+600), Brian Vickers (+1800), Denny Hamlin (+550) and Tony Stewart (+1200) were the only other double-digit laps leaders in June.

Kurt Busch (+4000) won the second Pocono race in 2007.

Pocono is a 2.5 mile tri-oval track nicknamed "The Tricky Triangle," because of its three different corners and three different straightaways

The banking is 14 degrees in turn 1, 8 degrees in turn 2, and 6 degrees in turn 3. The frontstretch is 3740 feet in length, the backstretch, 3055 feet, and the shortstretch 1780 feet.

As it was in June, Sunday's race will be 200 laps, or a long 500 miles on the 2.5-mile course. As always, late race pit strategy will play a role in the outcome, as will getting the handling right for the oddly configured track.

In addition, a possible new issue may arise, described here by Jeff Burton (+3000):

"This is a challenging race track," notes Burton. "Obviously, everybody is going to come here and say the same things. The three corners are completely different from each other. It's a tremendous challenge to get your car to drive well in all three corners. The bumps are more of an issue with the Car of Tomorrow. We have a new groove in turn three because of some new pavement down there that's really changed the way that we run in turn three. That's really made it interesting. I think that's going to have a huge factor in the race because the fast groove is four or five lanes up from the bottom of the race track, which means the bottom is always going to be open. It's never been like that before. I think that's really going to have an impact on the race."

There are six active drivers with more than one win at Pocono, a track NASCAR has been competing on since 1974. Those drivers include Jeff Gordon (+1200) with four wins, Bobby Labonte with three, and Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson,
Terry Labonte and Kurt Busch, each with two.

One-time Pocono race winners are Kasey Kahne, Carl Edwards (+750), Tony Stewart, and Ryan Newman (+4000).

Among drivers with at least two Pocono starts, Denny Hamlin leads everyone with a seriously low average finish of just 2.8. In five starts, Hamlin has finishes of 1-1-6-3-3.

Following Hamlin in the average finish category are Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson at 10.3 each, Mark Martin at 10.7, and Brian Vickers at 13.0.

Hamlin also leads all drivers with points accumulated at Pocono over the last five races, including bonus points. He's followed in that category by Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth (+1400), and Jeff Burton.