Pocono A Track That’s Like No Other, And Always Has Been

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Pocono A Track That’s Like No Other, And Always Has Been

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All of NASCAR’s speedways have their own design and traits that make them all different from one another.

However, in some cases that’s not easy to determine. So many tracks are of the same length and basic design they look like they came off a factory’s assembly line.

You’ve heard all about the “cookie cutter” speedways right? They are the 1.5-mile dogleg ovals that sprung up with monotonous regularity in the 1990s and into the 21st century.

They all appeared to be little more than clones of Charlotte Motor Speedway and they included Las Vegas, Chicagoland, Kansas, Texas and, most recently placed on the Sprint Cup schedule, Kentucky.

It got to the point where some wags begged anyone who had a notion to build a track make it something different – please?

“Hey, can’t anybody build another short track?” they asked. “How about another Bristol or Richmond so new fans could REALLY see something?”

Of course, however it might appear, all the 1.5-milers are not the same – not exactly. As any driver or crew chief will tell you, there are subtle differences that must be accounted for in car preparation.

In other words, it’s highly likely that a car readied for Charlotte isn’t likely going to run particularly well at, say, Texas.

There are several speedways in which the differences are anything but subtle. All it takes is a quick look to discover they are unto themselves. There are no others like them, in some cases, not even remotely close.

There’s the “paper clip” that is Martinsville. Old, venerated Darlington’s oval is egg-shaped. Bristol, a half-mile track, has high banking that is huge and infamous.

Richmond is the only three-quarter mile track on the Sprint Cup circuit. Atlanta may be a 1.5-mile track but its sweeping turns are about as long as its straightaways. At 2.5 miles, Indianapolis resembles a rectangle.

Infineon and Watkins Glen are road courses. That they are is the only thing they share.

And then there’s Pocono Raceway.

There’s not another track like it anywhere, certainly not in the United States.

It, too, is a 2.5-mile track but it’s triangular in shape. There are only three turns. A long straight separates turn one from sharp turn two – the “tunnel turn.” Then it’s a short jaunt to the sweeping turn three before it opens up to the long, speed-building frontstretch.

Outside of the road courses it’s the only track on which drivers have to shift gears, although for a long time the practice became unnecessary. But it’s back.

Pocono is so unique, and admittedly somewhat strange when it comes to speedway design, that at least one motorsports writer called it “the Duckbill Platypus of NASCAR.”

As you might expect, that name didn’t stick.

It was built in Long Pond in the lush Pennsylvania countryside near Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and, of course, in the region of the Pocono Mountains.

It opened in 1971 as a target for open-wheel racing. But by 1974 NASCAR came calling. The first Winston Cup race at Pocono was the Purolator 500 on Aug. 4 that year.

The race was the only major NASCAR event held at Pocono that season and it would be eight years before the track got a second date.

Pocono’s debut season was a very turbulent one for NASCAR. It went through points system changes and what seemed to be constant rule alterations that became monumentally frustrating for the teams.

“NASCAR has things so screwed up I don’t know what’s fair and what isn’t,” said Richard Petty, never known a harsh critic of the sanctioning body.

The nation was also strangled by a shortage of gasoline, created largely by a large reduction in oil shipments from the OPEC countries.

To appease the government, NASCAR boss Bill France Sr. asked that tracks reduce the length of their races by 10 percent or shrink the number of cars in a starting field.

Many speedways, including Daytona, cooperated.

Pocono did not. But to be fair, by the time August rolled around, the fuel situation was not good, but it wasn’t a crisis.

Ironically, the Purolator 500 still never ran its scheduled distance of 500 miles.

Bad weather was the culprit. The race was halted for one hour, 22 minutes after it had completed 300 miles, or 120 laps.

When it restarted, Petty sped into the lead on lap 148 and held it for the remaining distance.

Which was eight laps short of the scheduled 200. Another rain shower hit the track and NASCAR felt that to wait it out made no sense.

It was not an auspicious NASCAR debut for Pocono but ultimately it didn’t matter. The track has survived, made multiple improvements in amenities and had its share of memorable moments.

No single driver has dominated Pocono over the years, not like Petty has done at Martinsville and Richmond, Dale Earnhardt and David Pearson at Darlington and any driver who raced for Junior Johnson at Bristol.

But there have been competitors who have won in clumps at Pocono, among them Bobby Allison, Tim Richmond, Bobby Labonte, Jimmie Johnson and most recently Denny Hamlin.

Hamlin has won four times since 2006, twice that year and back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. He’s the defending champion of the Good Sam RV Insurance 500 set for Sunday.

Not to state the obvious here, but Hamlin would be very happy with another insurance win this season since he currently stands 11th in points.

He’s certainly proven he knows how to get around the weird ol’ track.

That’s no small feat.

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