Pocono 500 Race Preview

Pocono Raceway -- 06/08/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Wednesday Jun 4 2008 9:07pm

In a manner of speaking, this Sunday's race in Pocono kicks off the second half of what is often called the Race for the Chase.

Last weekend, Dover was race number 13 of 26 races needed to set the 2008 Chase field. Pocono is race number 14, making it the start of the long, hot summer racing session in NASCAR.

Between now and race number 26 in Richmond in early September, teams and drivers will be pulling out all the stops to be one of the elite 12 teams to make this year's Chase for the Championship.

One driver apparently looking forward to this phase of the season is Tony Stewart (+1050), whose performance traditionally heats up along with the summer temperatures.

"When it starts getting hot and humid, and the tracks get hot and slippery, that's what we like," said Stewart. "When guys can't hold it wide open and they can't sit there on high-grip tracks and they actually have to drive these things - that's when we start getting fast."

Right now, however, it seems anyone who wants to get to the finish line in the Sprint Cup Series is going to have to get past Stewart's teammate and fan un-favorite Kyle Busch (+485).

Busch has won four of 13 races this year (that's one driver of 43 winning almost a third of all the races), and leads the point standings by 142 points over 2nd-place Jeff Burton.

Perhaps we'll get a glimpse of how the summer might play out this weekend in Pocono, a venue that bills itself as "The Tricky Triangle."

The nickname is well-deserved, as the 2.5 mile tri-oval track has three different corners and three different straightaways for drivers to negotiate, also challenging crew chiefs in their set-ups. The banking in Turn 1 is 14 degrees, Turn 2 is 8 degrees, and Turn 3 is 6 degrees. Likewise, the frontstretch length is 3740 feet, the backstretch, 3055 feet, and the shortstretch 1780 feet.

"It has characteristics of a road course and a superspeedway," said Dale Earnhardt Jr. (+1050), who has 16 Cup starts at Pocono with four top-5 finishes. "It's a tough track. You carry a ton of speed into the corner in Turn 1. It's like you're going 205 mph and have to brake for a 90-degree turn. It's a tough track, but I think it will be a long race like normal at Pocono - not many cautions and single-car lines."

The latter part of his description is probably not what NASCAR wants to hear, coming on the heels of a Dover race which many described as a total yawner, triggering renewed criticism of NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow and the type of racing it creates.

NASCAR allowed teams to test at Pocono in the end of May, and the top three drivers in each test session were as follows:

Day 1: David Gilliland, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch.

Day 2 (a.m.): Dale Earnhardt Jr., Travis Kvapil, Carl Edwards.

Day 2 (p.m.): Kurt Busch, Mark Martin. Patrick Carpentier.

The NASCAR schedule at Pocono has always been a little strange, with two races per year taking place just weeks apart. This year, the race dates are June 8 and August 3.

In the past five years (ten races), eight drivers have posted wins here. Jimmie Johnson (+800) swept in 2004 and Denny Hamlin (+655) likewise swept in 2006. Other winners in that time period were Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman (+3000), Carl Edwards (+715), Kurt Busch (+1850) with Roush, Jeff Gordon (+1150), and Kurt Busch with Penske.

Hamlin, in fact, has an amazing record at Pocono. In four starts, he has two wins along with a 6th and a 3rd, for an extremely low average finish of just 2.8.

Following Hamlin in the average finish category are Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin (+2500), and Tony Stewart.

Over the last five races, however, Kurt Busch has the highest cumulative point total, followed by Stewart, Newman, Gordon and Hamlin.

Meanwhile, Kyle Busch, winner of practically everything in sight this year, has made six starts at Pocono with mixed results: one top 5, two top 10s, and one DNF, for an average finish of 16.2. His best finish was a 4th in his inaugural race here in 2005, and he came in 8th in this race last June.

Still, as this is the first race at Pocono to utilize the COT, past performance may not be the best indicator of future results.