Pocono Raceway Tag

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Stories about top-tier drivers getting a new crew chief are usually explosive news, but when Richard Childress Racing announced that Paul Menard would have a new crew chief starting this weekend in Pocono, there wasn’t much fanfare. However, I think bringing Danny Stockman Jr. over to turn the wrenches on the No. 27 Chevrolet SS was a smart decision. Not to take anything away from Menard’s former crew chief Justin Alexander, but Stockman has quietly become one of the brightest development crew chiefs in theRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor The news we expected came down Wednesday. Hendrick Motorsports announced that Dale Earnhardt Jr. will miss at least the next two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races while he continues to recover from concussion-like symptoms. This will undoubtedly drop Earnhardt from Chase contention, and upon his return, Earnhardt will have to hope for a health waiver from NASCAR (which should be awarded) at which point he will then have to win a race before the end of the regular season if he wants to Chase hisRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Since his runner-up finish at Bristol back in April, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. had been having a rough go of things in the five races that followed, failing to finish inside the top-10 in any of them, but on Monday at Pocono, Earnhardt returned to form at a track that he has had good luck at in the past. Starting eighth, Earnhardt struggled early in the race as it looked like Monday’s race might just be a continuation of their performance issues that they had beenRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Pocono’s tricky layout is notorious for giving rookies in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series a hard time, but for the stellar rookie class of 2016, Sunday’s Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono was a walk in the park. In this week’s “Rookie Report”, we’ll recap just how well the rookies did at the “Tricky Triangle”. Chase Elliott has been the class of the rookie field for much of 2016 and his first career trip to Pocono was one of his best showings of theRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Brad Keselowski finished third in the Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway, but his journey to that finish was an intriguing one. Keselowski started the race, which was delayed by one day due to weather, on the pole after out-qualifying his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano. Keselowski fell behind Logano on the start and slowly drifted back to the seventh position by the time the third caution waved on lap 23. During the round of pit stops, Keselowski, and his No. 2 MillerRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LONG POND, Pa. – Working with a substitute crew chief, and saving enough fuel to get to the finish line and complete a celebratory burnout, Kurt Busch won Monday’s rain-delayed Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono Raceway. Busch won for the first time this year in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and for the third time at Pocono, a 2.5-mile speedway featuring three widely different corners. And Busch claimed his 28th victory in NASCAR’s premier series with race engineer John Klausmeier leading theRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief Jimmie Johnson saw his chances of winning the Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway end after wrecking with less than 40 laps to go. The incident happened on one of the many frantic restarts as Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet slid in Turn 1, then clipped the rear of Brad Keselowski before making heavy contact with the inside wall. Johnson, a three-time winner at Pocono, has finished outside the top 20 in three of the last five races, with his only notable result beingRead More

By Joey Barnes, Editor-in-Chief The NASCAR has postponed its Sprint Cup Series race, the Axalta ‘We Paint Winners’ 400 at Pocono Raceway, due to persistent rain. Originally set for a 1 p.m. ET start time on Sunday, the race became delayed as mist continued to fall on the track and NASCAR officials were never able find a dry window. The new start time will be Monday, June 6 at noon ET with television coverage on FS1 and radio broadcasts on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The most recent event atRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service LONG POND, Pa. – The maiden voyage of the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Pocono Raceway was shorter than planned, but race winner Kyle Larson wasn’t complaining. NASCAR awarded the checkered flag in the Pocono Green 250 to Larson when the race was red-flagged after 53 of 100 scheduled laps and then called because of persistent rain. The victory was Larson’s first of the season and fourth in the series, but it was a source of frustration to runner-up Erik Jones, who arguably had theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Before last week’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr.’s 2016 season could have been summed up with a lyric from the blues standard “Born Under a Bad Sign.” “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all,” could well have been Truex’s theme for the current campaign. He lost the Daytona 500 to Denny Hamlin by six inches. He led 141 laps at Texas and finished sixth. He won the pole and led 172 of 267 lapsRead More