Beccas Pace Lap

Pocono Raceway -- 06/7/2009

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Saturday Jun 6 2009 1:57am

Becca's Pace Lap: The Pocono 500

• Front Row: Tony Stewart (P1), Jeff Gordon (P2)

• Pole Qualifying Speed: Qualifying rained out; field set by owner’s points

• Highest Starting Rookie: Joey Logano, starts 23rd

• To the Rear: None at present

• Highest Starter by Manufacturer:
Chevy: Tony Stewart (1st)
Dodge: Kurt Busch (4th)
Ford: Matt Kenseth (8th)
Toyota: Kyle Busch (6th)

• Outside the Top 35 Who Made the Field:
Dexter Bean
Dave Blaney
Patrick Carpentier
David Gilliland
Sterling Marlin
Joe Nemechek
Regan Smith
Scott Speed

• Outside the Top 35 Who Missed the Cut:
Derrike Cope
Tony Raines
Mike Wallace

• Weather Forecast: Variably cloudy, 75°F, SW winds at 5-10 mph

• Race Notes:

Last year's race winner: Kasey Kahne (June race)

Most recent winner here: Carl Edwards (August race)

The biggest news heading into this race weekend is NASCAR’s new double file restart rule. Drivers and crew chiefs are scrambling to understand it, and it could start affecting outcomes as soon as this race. It will likely take several weeks to determine the full implications, however, including what is being loosely termed the ‘wave-around’ feature of the rule for lap traffic.

All on-track action was rained out at Pocono Friday, including Cup qualifying and first practice, as well as Nationwide series practice. The rain is supposed to taper off Saturday, but the track will be green when cars do get back out on it.

The qualifying rain out puts current points leader Tony Stewart on the pole. Kasey Kahne won this race from the pole last year.

Kevin Harvick has the unfortunate distinction of being the active driver who has the most Pocono starts without leading a lap: 16.

Five of the last ten Pocono races have been won by Chevy drivers, with three Ford wins and two for Dodge. Toyota has never been to Victory Lane at Pocono in the Cup series.

• Quotes of the Week:

“The way I understand it is, when the caution comes out, lead lap cars will pit. Then, lap-down cars will have their chance to pit second time by. At that point, any car could choose to stay out to try to get a lap back. When you come to one to go, the cars that are in front of the leader will be waved around, and they've got to come back and fall in at the tail end of the line of cars. So, at that point, the wave-around will take place and we go back to green … At the end of the day, it think the biggest concern is to not give the people that get the wave-around an advantage. We want cars on the lead lap. There's no telling. I mean especially on the small track if you go two (laps down) and you get the wave-around, there's no way they're going to have a chance to pit, and now they're only a half-lap ahead of you and you're on new tires and you're going to catch them and run them down. So in most cases it's going to be a risky move and you've got to be lucky to take advantage of it. So it's kind of hard until we really get into it to know what the circumstances are going to be, but again, let's try it and if it doesn't work, we can go back.” – Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick Motorsports No. 48, on the new double-file restart rule with 'wave around'.

“Believe it or not, that impact last week in qualifying was in the top five. People don’t realize how hard that is. We got the information from NASCAR and it was a huge hit. The wreck here is probably number one in spectacular for me. I had come here for however many years and I can tell you that every year, not necessarily when you’re driving, but just thinking about Pocono, you basically say to yourself, ‘Man, the last thing I would ever want to have happen to me is a brake failure going into Turn 1 at Pocono – I can’t think of anything worse.’ And then you have it happen and it’s a scary moment. The impact was pretty severe as well. I felt pretty fortunate to have SAFER barriers and the seat and the foam and everything that we had in that car, because I don’t think under other circumstances that the results would have been quite the same. You can’t think about that. It’s like getting bucked off the horse - you have to get back on.” – Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Motorsports No. 24, on two of the hardest crashes of his NASCAR career.

• Current oddsmakers' favorite:
Jimmie Johnson +300 (starts 3rd)
Kyle Busch +400 (starts 6th)

• Long shots to watch:
Denny Hamlin +1800 (starts 7th)
Kasey Kahne +2500 (starts 14th)

* All information current at press time

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