Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Pocono - Gander Outdoors 400 Preview

brospn (60)in #sports • 6 years ago

Gander Outdoors 400

Pocono Raceway - Long Pond, PA
Sunday July 29, 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBCSN
2.5 Mile Flat Tri-Oval
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 75°F

Previous Five Winners and Pole Sitters

Race	Race Winner	Pole Sitter
Spring 2018	Martin Truex Jr.	Ryan Blaney
Summer 2017	Kyle Busch	Kyle Busch
Spring 2017	Ryan Blaney	Kyle Busch
Summer 2016	Chris Buescher	Martin Truex Jr.
Spring 2016	Kurt Busch	Brad Keselowski

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series returns to the Keystone State Sunday with the Gander Outdoors 400 at Pocono Raceway. A total of 39 cars are scheduled to enter the event. Who will be able to master the tunnel turn and come roaring down the longest straightaway in NASCAR first at the "Tricky Triangle"?

The Favorite(s)

NASCAR's Big Three have combined to win 15 out of 20 races this season, barring the madness of restrictor-plate racing it is obvious Las Vegas is going to consider at least one of them the favorite every week. This week the handicappers couldn't decide on just one, so Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch are co-favorites this week.

Kevin Harvick finished in fourth place here back in June while leading the most laps with 89. He has finished in the top-five in his last four starts at Pocono, including two runner-up finishes. The No.4 team will being using a chassis that has finished no worse than fourth in five races this season. Harvick's track history looks solid except for one tiny little thing: He has never won a race at Pocono in 35 career starts.

"As we go to Pocono, we obviously want to win there, especially since its one of the two tracks we haven’t won at," said Harvick. "I know that Rodney (Childers, crew chief) and the organization itself has put a lot of effort into this particular weekend trying to get to victory lane and take that race off the list. It’s a place I enjoy going – not so much the place I enjoyed going in my previous life before I came to Stewart-Haas Racing. It was never a track we ran very well at, but we’ve come to find out that if you have the cars where they need to be and the people around you, things are much different. So, Pocono is a place that I’ve learned to enjoy more than I did in my previous life at RCR (Richard Childress Racing).”

Coming off of a winning performance at New Hampshire last week, Harvick may have the momentum to finally get the Pocono monkey off his back.

Kyle Busch won this race last season, his first career victory at Pocono, and has three straight top-ten finishes here, including third place back in June. Speed has not been an issue for Busch at Pocono lately, he has captured three of the previous six poles. Navigating his way through the track's three very distinct turns will be the key to his success on Sunday.

"The hardest part of the track, for me, is probably turn one, and then turn two is the second-hardest, and then turn three is the third-hardest – turn three, last year, because of the patch they laid down," Busch said. "We couldn’t go down low and get underneath somebody and get a run on them because, when you come off the corner, you’re 8 to 10 mph slower than the guy on your outside and they’re just going to blow right by you going down the straightaway."

The fact that Busch leads Harvick in the drivers points standings despite trailing him in wins is a testament to the consistency the No.18 has shown all year. Expect him to be fighting for the checkered in the closing laps once again this week.

Other Drivers to Watch

Despite winning this race back in June, Martin Truex Jr. is slightly behind his Big Three compatriots in the odds this week. Why? I have no clue. The close proximity of the two annual races at Pocono has led to one driver sweeping both races six times, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. being the last one to accomplish the feat in 2014. Truex is currently riding a streak of five top-four finishes in his last five races, with two victories among the streak. Truex has two career wins at Pocono and has yet to claim three victories on any one track. If he wins again on Sunday, the No. 78 team will be drinking all the Yuengling in Long Pond again.

Can anyone surpass the Big Three this week and end up in victory lane? Unless Mother Nature or equipment failure intervenes, it doesn't seem likely. Kyle Larson finished in second place back in June, but consistency has plagued all the Chevrolet drivers this year. If he can replicate his prior performance from six weeks ago he can at least challenge the Big Three. Denny Hamlin leads all active drivers with four career wins at Pocono, but hasn't been victorious here since 2010.

One driver to keep an eye on this week is Aric Almirola. Almirola is a teammate of Kevin Harvick and the Stewart-Haas Racing crews have been sharing notes. Almirola finished in seventh place back in June, his first top-fifteen finish at Pocono in 12 career starts. He had what appeared to be the most dominant car at Chicagoland and New Hampshire. Equipment failures ruined his day at Chicagoland and a bad pit-stop knocked him out of the lead in New Hampshire, although he recovered enough to finish in third place. The No. 10 car has been steadily improving each week, if his pit crew can step up he might surprise everybody at Pocono.

News Around the Track

Last May Reuters reported that the France family was searching for a buyer for the NASCAR sanctioning body. Last month Forbes expanded on the story by claiming the family was only looking for minority investors. NASCAR Chairman Bill France called into the SiriusXm radio show "Tradin' Paint" on Wednesday to comment on what he called rumors, mentioning that rumors are "seldom right."

"Look, we’re focused on ruling and managing NASCAR," said France. "There’s nothing to report on that. Rumors are always interesting, but they’re seldom right. The France family is locked and loaded in its dedication to NASCAR."

It sure took France a long time to finally respond to the stories, where there's smoke there's fire people say.

Richard Petty Motorsports owner Richard Petty has announced contract negotiations have begun to keep Bubba Wallace Jr. in the driver's seat of the No. 43 car for the 2019 NASCAR season. Rookie Wallace started the current season with a bang by placing runner-up in the Daytona 500, but has struggled for the most part since. He is currently in 24th place in the drivers points standings.

"Bubba will be with us again next year, from a standpoint that he's still learning," said Petty. "He's a rookie. A lot of these tracks, he's never been to. We've got a new car, first time with a Chevrolet, so we're trying to learn the driver and the car, and all of us trying to learn together. It's been a real learning process. Right now, we're kind of too slow learning. We need to speed that up. I feel like it's just going to take a little while to make it gel. It hardly ever [happens] that any team just comes in and does really good at the beginning of it. It takes two or three years for everybody to sort of settle in. Hopefully, we get settled in so we're ready for next year."

"The King" Richard Petty has been a wonderful ambassador for NASCAR for more than 50 years, it would do the motorsport a world of good if he could return the No. 43 to a place of prominence again.