Pennsylvania 500 Race Preview

Pocono Raceway -- 08/1/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Wednesday Jul 28 2010 2:15pm

This week the series returns to Long Pond, Pa., for another run at Pocono Raceway, a 2.5-mile, triangle-shaped track. The series just ran here in June, so NASCAR handicappers have current data to review. In fact, I think the practice, qualifying and race data from the June race at Pocono plus the same data from last week's soiree at Indianapolis (another giant, flat track) is enough, allowing us to ignore data from other big flat tracks, such as Fontana, Chicagoland and Kansas.

This week the Sprint Cup teams will follow the typical preliminary schedule: one practice and qualifying on Friday, two more practices on Saturday, and then the race on Sunday afternoon. According to Weather.com at press time, Friday and Saturday should feature clear, sunny skies, so we should get good practice and qualifying data to review in addition to the solid historical data.

On the other hand, Weather.com also says Pocono may receive rain showers on Sunday, which would lower predictability by changing the track and/or even causing a race stoppage. Plus, Pocono is so big, it's more likely to produce a fuel-mileage race than intermediate and small tracks.

All in all, I tenatively rate Pocono's predictability right at average this week. Bettors should therefore take a straight-forward approach to odds this week.

Handicapping Pocono
I analyzed the practice, qualifying and race data from Pocono's June race, and then I reviewed my Race Preview and race notes from that race and used that info to tweak the rankings. I also crunched all the Indy data, and used those results to make minor tweaks to the rankings.

Here are the results:

1. Denny Hamlin
2. Kyle Busch
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Clint Bowyer
5. Kevin Harvick
6. Jeff Burton
7. Tony Stewart
8. Juan Pablo Montoya
9. Ryan Newman
10. Kurt Busch

Hamlin and Kyle Busch were outstanding all weekend at Pocono in June, and although they made a mediocre showing at Indy, I still think merit the mid-week top spots for this run at Pocono. Johnson was also strong at Pocono in June (although a poor starting position proved too much to overcome), but he was bad at Indy, so I'll be watching that team carefully Friday and Saturday.

Bowyer, Harvick and Burton were very solid on both tracks and could easily win this go-round.

Stay tuned for my update following the preliminaries on Friday and Saturday.

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