Pocono Raceway is the track where Chris Buescher secured his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win in 2016. The race was shortened because of rain placing him at the top spot and giving him the opportunity to win the race.
Buescher races for JTG Daugherty Racing, a team that does not usually run up front throughout the season. Many speculate that Pocono was a lucky win for Buescher, but it is still a track that he very much enjoys.
Pocono is one of NASCAR’s most unique venues due to only having three corners and many drivers do not share his opinion of the track. But, since Buescher landed his first win at Pocono, his confidence and positivity show when he goes to the venue.
“Heading back to Pocono Raceway this weekend, we definitely want to build on our progress from the June race,” Buescher said. “The track has its challenges, but we had speed in our Scott Products Camaro ZL1 and brought home a top-20 finish. It’s a place that I enjoy. We got our first win there so it’s always a special track to me.”
He and his team are looking for a better finish in this weekend’s race and could possibly be a dark horse to take the checkered flag. If they play the right strategy, the pieces could fall into place for them to be able to be up front at the end of the race.
Buescher’s season hasn’t been the best, only leading one lap all year and averaging a 21.1 finish. He is hoping to change that starting this weekend at Pocono. The team struggles with speed, but looking ahead to the race with higher expectations can certainly help them. It’s a good sign when they feel they can have a better performance this time at Pocono by using the notes and information they took down in June.
It’s been a struggle for them to find success at other tracks, but Pocono may be the one where they can turn around their season. Other tracks where they have had the most success this year have been at restrictor plate tracks, which can be wild-cards.
After placing in the top-15 in all three restrictor plate races, Buescher is looking for something similar at Pocono. A good finish will give the team a boost as we get closer to the Playoffs. Look for this team to be one of the most underrated teams at Pocono.
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will both be in action at Pocono Raceway this week and the NASCAR Xfinity Series will be at Iowa Speedway. Check out the full schedule below, which is subject to change.
Note: All times are ET
POCONO Friday, July 27 Noon-12:55 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series practice, No TV (Follow live)
2-2:55 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series final practice, No TV (Follow live)
PRESS PASS (Watch live)
11 a.m.: Kids Drive NASCAR
11:15 a.m.: Grant Enfinger, Justin Haley and Brett Moffitt
IOWA Friday, July 27
5:05-5:55 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series first practice, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
6:35-7:25 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series final practice, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
POCONO Saturday, July 28 9-9:50 a.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series first practice, CNBC/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
10 a.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying, FS1 (Follow live)
11:40 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice, CNBC/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
1 p.m.: NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Gander Outdoors 150 (60 laps, 150 miles), FS1 (Follow live)
4:10 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Busch Pole Qualifying, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
PRESS PASS (Watch live)
8:15 a.m.: Jimmie Johnson
8:30 a.m.: Aric Almirola
10:30 a.m.: Bubba Wallace and Richard Petty
10:45 a.m.: Jeffrey Earnhardt
2:30 p.m.: Post-NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race
5 p.m.: Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying
IOWA Saturday, July 28
3:05 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series qualifying, NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
5:20 p.m.: NASCAR Xfinity Series U.S. Cellular 250 presented by The Rasmussen Group (250 laps, 218.75 miles), NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
POCONO Sunday, July 29 2:30 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 (160 laps, 400 miles), NBCSN/NBC Sports App (Follow live)
PRESS PASS (Watch live)
11:30 a.m.: Gander Outdoors
5:30 p.m.: Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race
With just three races until the Playoffs begin at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Aug. 26, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series continues their exciting season this weekend at Pocono Raceway.
With five drivers locked in by virtue of wins, three drivers find themselves on the bubble of not making it. From this weekend until Bristol could make the difference and provide the opportunity to lock themselves into the Playoffs.
Currently, there are 32 trucks on the preliminary entry list.
Here’s a look at who to expect that might end up in victory lane Saturday afternoon in The Tricky Triangle.
Kyle Busch – Busch will be back in the series for the first time since Charlotte in May. He’ll be looking to make history on Saturday afternoon as he’ll be searching to tie Ron Hornaday’s all-time Truck Series wins list at 51. Busch has been close this season to tying or surpassing the record. Aside from the tire issue at Atlanta, Busch won at Las Vegas and finished second twice at Kansas and Charlotte. We could already be talking about a different story if he had won at those racetracks, but Busch will be more hungry than ever to get back to victory lane in the Truck Series. Pocono could be the track he could tie Hornaday’s records due to recent past success. He has only competed in three races at The Tricky Triangle and has had so-so finishes. In his first race in 2011, Busch finished second to race winner Kevin Harvick. He never competed again until 2015 where he won the race after starting second. In the previous race, Busch was involved in an accident on lap 36 thus ending his shot at a win. He’s led 85 laps and has an average finish of 9.3 with an average start of 2.0. He’ll be looking for the weekend sweep at Pocono this weekend.
Johnny Sauter – After a dismal week at Eldora last week, Sauter is glad to be out of Ohio and back on the normal series circuit. Like Busch, Sauter is looking to get back to victory lane after a couple of bad finishes. Sauter hasn’t won since Texas in June and hasn’t had a top-five finish since Chicago where he finished third. Since then, however, he’s had finishes of 15th at Kentucky and 16th at Eldora. At Pocono, Sauter will try to find victory lane. In eight races, he has three top fives and five top-10 finishes, along with 16 laps led. En route to his 2016 championship, he started 11th and finished eighth. In the previous outing at Pocono, Sauter finished fifth after starting seventh. His best finish at the 1.5-mile raceway was second back in 2014. Whether it will be Saturday afternoon or later on in his career, Sauter will cross Pocono off the tracks where he hasn’t won. It’s only a matter of time for the No. 21 GMS Racing Chevy driver.
Todd Gilliland – It will be a learning curve for Gilliland this weekend at Pocono, as he will be making his first ever Truck Series start. However, if past history has told us anything, nothing is new for the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver. In his first ever 1.5 mile start at Charlotte, he finished 10th after starting third but had late-race contact that settled him back a little bit in the finishing order. He’ll be competing in the ARCA Racing Series Friday afternoon to gain more practice and knowledge about Pocono. The truck Gilliland will be driving has finished second and ran at Texas and Chicago. This truck has led 62 laps.
Ben Rhodes – After a tough outing at Eldora last week, Rhodes will be looking to get back in victory lane since Kentucky and this weekend could be his chance to do it. He only has two starts at the 1.5-mile racetrack dating back to 2016, where he finished 11th. His best finish was second in last years race after starting on the pole. He has an average start of 2.0 and an average finish of 6.5. In the two stages last year, Rhodes finished third and fourth respectively en route to his second-place finish.
Brett Moffitt – Moffitt will be back racing at Pocono this weekend for the first time since 2016. In his only race here, he competed for Red Horse Racing driving the No. 11 where he finished third after starting 15th. Moffitt has had success at 1.5-mile tracks this year, however. His first success was back in February when he won at Atlanta. A third-place finish at Las Vegas, fourth at Charlotte and a win at Chicago were his best finishes at those 1.5-mile tracks this season. It’ll be interesting to see how Moffitt performs for the first time since 2016.
Since the first event in 2010, there have been eight different winners in eight races. The winners include Elliott Sadler, Kevin Harvick, Joey Coulter, Ryan Blaney, Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch, William Byron, and Christopher Bell.
The lowest a race winner has ever come was sixth back in 2013 and was won by Ryan Blaney. The race winner has won from the pole three times with Elliott Sadler, Kevin Harvick, and William Byron.
There are two practice sessions scheduled for Friday afternoon with the first one taking place at noon ET with the final practice at 2 p.m. ET, with no live TV coverage. Qualifying is slated for Saturday morning at 10 a.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
Race coverage begins at 1 p.m. ET Saturday with an approximate green flag at 1:15 p.m. ET and will be live on Fox Sports 1 and MRN Radio. The first stage ends on Lap 15, with the second stage ending on Lap 30 and the checkered flag flying on Lap 60.
Martin Truex Jr. didn’t have the strongest car in the race, though he won a stage, and didn’t pitch one of his signature clinic performances. But his team gambled in the closing laps by staying out under caution, and he held off drivers with fresher tires to win at Pocono.
He, along with Kevin Harvick, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, chose to stay out during a caution with 21 laps to go. He held off Larson on two consecutive restarts to score his 17th career victory in 455 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts.
“You’re always concerned on restarts. You just never know. So much can happen on those things, but we were luckily able to get a good one. Just can’t say enough about everyone on this team. Everybody, Cole (Pearn, crew chief) and all the guys really did a good job last night. We had a good practice yesterday. Really, it’s been a good weekend, overall. Just kind of been a sane weekend. I feel like we’re getting back to what we were doing last year.”
It’s his second career victory at Pocono Raceway.
“It’s always fun to win, but especially when you beat the best guys out there. Those two guys (Larson and Harvick) were so fast today. Honestly, we were all really equal. It was a matter of who could get out front. The 4 (Harvick) and I stayed (out) on tires. We felt like in practice, we were really fast on scuffs. So Cole made a good call there to stay out. Once we got out in clean air, this thing was like a rocket ship.”
Larson, Kyle Busch, Harvick and Brad Keselowski rounded out the Top-five.
“We weren’t quite as fast as what I thought we’d be after practice,” Larson said. “I ran probably sixth or seventh all day long and finished second. Was happy about that because I felt like obviously we were at a little bit of a disadvantage on tires there, but the track position overcame that. But I felt like if I didn’t have a good restart on any one of those, I would have fell back outside the top 5 from those guys on fresher tires. Happy we finished second but needed a lot more to kind of compete with the three guys that ran up front all day.”
“Just real unfortunate there that once we all thought we had that caution that brought us all down pit road for what we thought was the final stop of the day, we got tires, we beat everybody off pit road and was in control of the restart and then in control of the race when we were leading there, and all of a sudden about 10, 11 laps into that run, there was a caution in Turn 1 for what looked to me to be a shoe booty,” Busch said. “Somebody took their booty off, I guess, and chucked it out their window. That was kind of weird that we saw a caution for that, but safety comes first, so that just kind of derailed our strategy, if you will, and we lost this race last year on not pitting in that situation and getting beat by tires, and so we pitted this year for tires and got beat by those that didn’t pit.”
“We had a good car all day, just came down to really losing control of the race on the last pit stop,” Harvick said. “Really not pitting or pitting didn’t really seem to matter. We lost control to the 18 (Kyle Busch) and wound up losing a couple more spots on the restart starting on the inside, and that was the end of the day. Car was fast and everybody did a great job, it just didn’t work out.”
Ryan Blaney, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott rounded out the Top-10.
“My guys kept fighting all day long,” Johnson said. “That was a hard-fought eighth place finish. We just need to keep improving, but we’re slowly chipping away at it.”
RACE SUMMARY
LONG POND, Pa. – JUNE 03: Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Menards/Duracell Ford, and Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer Ford, lead the field to green for the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 3, 2018 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Ryan Blaney led the field to green at 2:15 p.m. He led the first 11 laps, before Kevin Harvick used a run off Turn 3 to pass him down the frontstretch for the top spot. Blaney opted to pit early in the run and work the race like a road course race (fuel window was roughly 35 laps). While he was among a few drivers that pitted early in the fuel run, most of the field pitted 10 laps after Blaney, with Harvick pitting on Lap 26. Jimmie Johnson — who’d led a career total of 169,291 laps, entering this race — led his first lap of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season on Lap 27. When he pitted on Lap 29, Brad Keselowski took over the top spot. After he pitted from the lead on Lap 33, Harvick — who passed Kyle Busch exiting Turn 3 two laps prior — cycled back to the lead.
Martin Truex Jr. got a run down the short-chute to pass Harvick through Turn 3 to take the lead on Lap 43, and drove on to win the first stage on Lap 50. Keselowski took only two tires under the caution and exited pit road with the lead.
Back to green on Lap 57, Harvick got a run going into Turn 1 and took the lead back from Keselowski. Running third, Keselowski pitted on Lap 67 to short-pit the second stage. The rest of the leaders followed suite on Lap 78, with Harvick pitting from the lead the following lap, and handing the lead to Darrell Wallace Jr. Harvick ran him down and passed him to retake the lead on Lap 84, and drove on to win the second stage.
For most of the final stage, Harvick ran unchallenged. But after Derrike Cope got turned by Kyle Larson in Turn 3 with 36 laps to go, he lost the lead on pit road to Kyle Busch.
LONG POND, Pa. – JUNE 03: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Red White & Blue Toyota, pits during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 3, 2018 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
Back to green with 31 to go, Busch shot ahead of Harvick going into Turn 1. A crush panel in the middle of Turn 1 brought out the caution with 21 to go. Truex, Harvick, Chase Elliott and Larson opted to stay out, Blaney, Aric Almirola and Austin Dillon exited pits first by taking just two tires and Kyle Busch, Hamlin and Keselowski, the first cars on four new tires, rounded out the Top-10.
“…clean air is always super important here,” Larson said after the race. “He and the 4 (Harvick) were way better than I was at the end, but I was just able to kind of stay just low enough on exit I felt like to keep them tight behind me, so yeah, clean air is just important everywhere, but especially I feel like when you get to these fast tracks that are pretty flat.”
Martin Truex Jr. does celebratory burnouts on the front stretch at Pocono Raceway, to celebrate his victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway. Photo: Kirk Schroll/SpeedwayMedia.com
Restarting with 17 to go, Truex shot out to a lead of over a second, while Harvick was usurped for second by Larson.
“…when you’re on the outside, the leader typically chooses the outside for the launch and to get going, and so he can control the guy on his inside and not get in a bad aero spot so that just makes that lane accelerate just that instant sooner, and that momentum just kind of rolls,” Busch said. “But I thought Larson and I had a pretty good run there on that final restart where I pushed him back up to the back of the 78, and he didn’t hit him enough in order to get him up the track a little farther so I could squeak on under there and have a three‑wide battle and probably a whole bunch of fire and flames and parts on the outside of the racetrack in Turn 2, but maybe next time.”
Rounding Turn 1 with 15 to go, Hamlin got loose in Turn 1 and made contact with Alex Bowman, sending him into the wall, while he slid down and hit the inside wall.
Restarting with 10 to go, Erik Jones got turned when he jumped out of line with Joey Logano, who was pushing him on the restart, spun down the track and hit the inside wall with his left-rear corner panel.
Back to green with seven to go, Truex swung down and back up the frontstretch to block Larson’s advance and drove on to victory.
NUTS & BOLTS
The race lasted two hours and 52 minutes, at an average speed of 139.535 mph. There were 11 lead changes among seven different drivers, and six cautions for 23 laps.
Kyle Busch is making milestones this year in the Cup Series and now he’s marked off another one in the Xfinity Series, by winning the Pocono Green 250 at Pocono Raceway. The win today was Busch’s first win at Pocono in the Xfinity series.
He led 64 of 100 laps today in his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota culminating in his 92nd career win in the Xfinity Series. Busch dominated the race overall, finishing 2.85 seconds over second place Chase Elliott in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet.
In Victory Lane, a happy Busch remarked, “It feels good for as good as our car was, and I tried to screw it up early again this week.” He added, “The car was on rails this week you know it was last week too, but we were able to overcome our deficits we had this week.” He also said, “It’s a lot of fun to race with meaning and cause, so I dedicate this win to the men and women that are fighting for our country both now and past.”
UPDATE: According to a NASCAR spokesperson, Busch failed post-race inspection height measurements. Any possible penalties will be announced next week.
Stage 1 would be caution free from start to finish. Cole Custer brought the field to the green, but by Lap 2 Busch was leading the field and wouldn’t look back. There were some great battles going on with all the cars fanning out four and five wide on the track, making for an exciting race. Busch would take the stage win leading 23 of 25 laps.
Stage 2 started off in an interesting way. During the caution, Busch, along with Christopher Bell, received speeding penalties and had to restart at the rear of the field. But, starting at the rear would not hinder either Bell or Busch as within 10 laps both drivers were back in the top 10. There was only one caution for the spinning car of Michael Annett. Paul Menard worked his way to the front to be the winner of Stage 2.
Stage 3 had some of the best action with cars battling for position. John Hunter Nemechek, Bell, and Brandon Jones were all swapping the top spots. The yellow flag waived twice for cautions, once for Annett and Chase Briscoe who got tangled up and into the wall. The next caution would involve Justin Allgaier and Bell who were both in the top 10 all day, ending their chances at a win. Busch had the top spot when the green flag flew again and stayed there to the finish getting his first Xfinity win of 2018.
Second place would go to Elliott in his No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet. After the race, he commented, “Kyle was really fast at the beginning though I thought about halfway through I was equal to him.” He went on to say, “If I was right behind him I could draft and stay close and I thought that was going to be good if I could’ve got the air and run a little further up on that restart.” He finished by saying, “ It was fun, had a good day, I’m looking forward to the next one.”
Daniel Hemric in his No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet would take the third spot today. Hemric summed his day up as a ”Chicken salad kind of day.” He explained it this way, “We struggled trying to get track position early, we hoped we had a lot more speed, it was so hard to make runs or passes. You get side by side but it all depends on what the guy behind you did, if he went with you or with the other guy.” He continued, “It seems like I was always the other guy who (they) didn’t get going with.”
Austin Cindric and Cole Custer would round out the top five. Elliott Sadler, John Hunter Nemechek, Paul Menard, Tyler Reddick, and Ryan Truex finished sixth through 10th respectively.
Sadler leads the Xfinity Series standings with 474 points, Cole Custer is second with 412 points and Daniel Hemric is in third place with 411 points. Tyler Reddick sits in fourth place with 410 points, and rounding out the top five is Christopher Bell with 395 points.
The Xfinity Series will be heading next to Michigan International Speedway on Saturday, June 9.
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LONG POND, Pa. – Just as he had done in winning his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race last June, Ryan Blaney kept Kevin Harvick behind him at Pocono Raceway when it mattered most.
Blaney sped around the 2.5-mile triangular track in 50.877 seconds (176.897 mph) in Friday’s knockout qualifying session to earn the top starting spot for Sunday’s Pocono 400 (2 p.m. ET Sunday on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
In winning his first Busch Pole Award at the Tricky Triangle, his second of the season and the fourth of his career, Blaney beat Harvick (176.807 mph) by .026 seconds. Harvick, a five-time winner in the series this year, had the top speed in each of the previous two rounds.
But Pocono is becoming a special track for Blaney, who got his first taste of competition in a quarter midget on the dirt track outside Turn 3.
“I’ve always enjoyed this place,” Blaney said. “I enjoyed coming here to watch my dad (Dave Blaney) race. I made my first-ever start in a race car at the dirt track out there. So it’s been special to me.
“Me and Jeb Burton and Brandon McReynolds grew up racing scooters. There used to be a small Pocono with MRO (Motor Racing Outreach) in the infield over there. We used to race scooters around that. I have a lot of memories about this place.”
Blaney and his No. 12 team also have developed a knack for negotiating the track with three distinctly different turns.
“I feel like we have a pretty good line of communication with where we need to be from practice to qualifying to the race. I feel very comfortable, and the team feels very confident, and that’s always a good combination.”
Harvick had a pole-winning lap going until he slipped in Turn 3.
“I thought we did a really good job of trying to pick a pace and trying not to be a hero on every lap, and we were able to pick up a 10th (of a second) in each round,” Harvick said. “We got a little loose there in (Turn) 3, and I didn’t want to tug on the wheel any more just because of the fact I didn’t want it to get any looser.
“So I just let it slide to the center and had to wait and gave up a good solid 10th there. It was still a great lap for our Busch Beer Ford, and starting up front is a big deal here.”
Jamie McMurray qualified third in the No. 1 Chevrolet, followed by Toyota driver Martin Truex Jr. Kyle Busch, who picked up his fourth victory of the season in last Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte, will roll off fifth beside brother Kurt Busch, who qualified sixth.
Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Daytona 500 winner Austin Dillon completed the top 12.
1. Martin Truex, Jr.: Truex finished third at Pocono as Kyle Busch won from the pole. Truex leads the Monster Energy Cup points standings by 48 over Kyle Larson.
“Kyle was just unstoppable today,” Truex said. “Somebody should tell Kyle ‘Way to go,’ but it won’t be me or any member of my pit crew, especially two of my tire changers that are suspended. That’s because Kyle’s crew chief Adam Stevens had a confrontation with my pit crew at Indianapolis. While Kyle and I made fire, Adam and my crew made fireworks.”
2. Kyle Busch: Busch won the pole for the Overton’s 400 at Pocono and led 74 laps on his way to the win, snapping a 36-race winless streak and winning for the first time at Pocono.
“It feels great to do a burn out,” Busch said, “as opposed to being ‘burned out’ of my car. Ironically, I’ve been ‘spinning my wheels’ all year.”
3. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished second at Pocono, posting his eighth top 5 of the year, and is now third in the points standings, 97 out of first.
“That makes four runner-up finishes in my career at Pocono,” Harvick said. “If you think I’m disappointed about that, I ‘second’ that emotion. And trust me, I know disappointment. It permeates my household, in fact. Much of the disappointment stems from the fact that I’m known there as ‘three-inch Kevin Harvick.’”
4. Kyle Larson: Larson lost his drive shaft early at Pocono, necessitating a lengthy trip to the garage before returning to claim a 33rd-place finish.
“What’s worse than losing a drive shaft?” Larson said. “Losing a sponsor. Target will no longer sponsor the No. 42 car next year. They’re moving sponsorship from racing to soccer. At least, that’s their goal. It’s seems the red on the red car has been red-carded.”
5. Jimmie Johnson: Contact with Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne sent Johnson into the wall on lap 57, ending his day at Pocono. Johnson eventually finished 35th.
“Kasey had a huge win the previous week at Indianapolis,” Johnson said. “He apparently was still riding that wave of momentum when he slid up the track and got into me.
“But it was just a racing incident. And let me define ‘racing incident’ for you: it’s when there’s an accident that doesn’t involve cars bursting into flames, a crew chief mouthing off with members of an opposing crew, and a race team unfairly disciplining just one of the involved parties.”
6. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski took fifth in the Overton’s 400, recording his series-best 11th top 5 of the season.
“Penske Racing is adding a third car in 2018,” Keselowski said, “and Ryan Blaney will be the driver. Ryan is a great guy, and one of the best things he has going for him is that his father is Dave Blaney, and not Tom Logano. Tom Logano is the Lavar Ball of NASCAR.”
7. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin led 18 laps and finished fourth at Pocono, as Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch took the victory.
“Kyle Busch was the class of the field,” Hamlin said. “That’s saying something, because it’s not often you can use the words ‘class’ and ‘Kyle Busch’ in a sentence. Now, using ‘Kyle Busch’ and a word that rhymes with class in the same sentence, that’s another story altogether.”
8. Jamie McMurray: McMurray started third at Pocono but finished a disappointing 26th.
“The No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet was handicapped by transmission issues,” McMurray said. “That caused a lot of smoke to enter the cockpit. It’s doubly disappointing because at Pocono in June, I wrecked with Jimmie Johnson and my car burst into flames. As the saying goes, ‘Where there’s smoke, there was fire.’”
9. Chase Elliott: Eliott finished tenth at Pocono and remains winless on the season.
“I know I don’t necessarily have to win to make the Chase For The Cup,” Elliott said, “but it would sure make things easier. But sometimes just the mere pressure of knowing you need a victory can hinder, impede, and hamper you from doing just that. A lot of drivers, Joey Logano included, call that an ‘encumbered win.’”
10. Clint Bowyer: Bowyer scored a solid day at Pocono, winning Stage 2 on his way to a sixth-place finish. He is tenth in the Monster Energy Cup points standings.
“Thirteen different drivers have posted victories this year,” Bowyer said. “That means there are only three spots in the Chase For The Cup up for grabs. People who know me understand that I’m willing to go to great lengths to secure one of those spots, for me or for a teammate.”
It’s easy to believe with Christopher Bell’s dominance in the Camping World Truck Series this season that he’s a lock for the 2017 championship. He leads the series with four wins, has eight top-fives and 11 top-10s, three poles, and currently leads the regular season points. He’s a Kyle Busch Motorsports pilot right now, and with backing from Toyota Racing Development, it’s tempting to just call off the competition now and hand him the championship trophy.
But the season isn’t over, and if anyone has any doubts, they can look at the saga of Bell’s former KBM teammate William Byron a year ago. At this point in the 2016 truck season, Byron was only a rookie but had five wins including Pocono and was the season points leader. When he wasn’t winning poles and races, he was scoring top-fives and top-10s, keeping up with the consistency and making sure he was in championship shape as Homestead loomed larger.
After opening up the playoffs with a win at Loudon, Byron rattled off four-straight top-10s, three of which were top-fives, and kept padding onto his points lead. But after winning the pole and leading 112 of the 150 scheduled laps at Phoenix (the elimination race before Homestead), he dropped an engine on lap 141 and finished 27th. That finish ultimately killed his title hopes. Adding insult to injury, Byron could have won the title as he won the season finale at Homestead.
The target is currently on Bell’s back as he is looking to be the man to beat in 2017. He’s regularly outperformed 2016 champion Johnny Sauter, has twice as many wins as John Hunter Nemechek and team owner and part-time driver Kyle Busch, and despite not having as many stage wins as Sauter he does happen to have more playoff points (24) than Sauter (10), which is important considering this new format.
On top of that, the list of tracks coming up could help Bell further assert his dominance over the rest of the field. Proving that he’s a well-rounded driver, in the upcoming tracks he’s finished in the top-10 at every race with the exception of 24th at Michigan a year ago, although that was due to a crash after starting fifth. But while he has an affinity for the 1.5-mile tracks, he’s excelled on short tracks, 1.0-mile tracks, 2.0-mile tracks, and even road courses (he finished fifth at Mosport in 2016).
With Crew Chief Rudy Fugle in his corner (Fugle also led Byron’s seven-win rookie season in 2016), Bell has shown that he has grown immensely after playing second-fiddle to Byron for most of the 2016 season. But although he’s been at the front for most of the 2017 (1,703 laps completed out of 1,868 possible laps in 12 starts, 521 laps led) with very few mishaps (a 25th at Dover thanks to a crash), he’s shown that he’s the main threat for the championship this year. However, it’s already been proven that under this playoff system, things can change in a heartbeat.
Joey Logano’s ever-dwindling playoff hopes took a further hit yesterday with not one, but two pit road penalties in the closing laps of the Overton’s 400 at Pocono Raceway.
He ducked onto pit road to make his final stop with 36 laps to go. The call then came from Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race Director David Hoots that Logano had to serve a pass through for speeding on pit entry.
He came down two laps later to serve his pass through, locking up the brakes getting onto pit road. Logano’s team opted to change all four tires while he was serving his pass through, which is a no-no. As a result, he was issued a stop and go penalty for stopping to service his car while serving a penalty.
“My bad,” crew chief Todd Gordon said on the radio afterwards.
Logano rejoined the race in 27th, one lap down, which is where he finished.
This race has been the tale of his season since scoring his encumbered victory at Richmond Raceway. Logano, who finished outside the top-10 only once in the first quarter of the season, has only posted three top-10 finishes since his win at Richmond.
It also didn’t help that his performance was average at best, with a 17.7 average running position through the race.
He leaves Pocono trailing Matt Kenseth by 69 points for the 16th-place cutoff in the playoffs.
