This week in NASCAR: Pennsylvania 500
Sunday’s Pennsylvania 500 is NASCAR’s second visit to Pocono this season and marks the halfway point in the Race to the Chase for the Championship.
That Tony Stewart is not the favorite this week on WagerWeb.com is a bit of a surprise; Smoke is the second-favorite at +550. In the first go round at Pocono, Stewart led 39 laps en route to his second career victory at Pocono and first as an owner/driver. In the last eight races at Pocono, Stewart has finished worse than seventh just once, a 35th-place effort in the 2008 June race.
No other track that hosts two races — there are 14 of them including Pocono — has two races closer than Long Pond’s superspeedway; just eight weeks separates the two races. Yet drivers say it’s two different animals.
“That track changes a good bit,” said Kasey Kahne, who won the Pocono 500 in 2008 and owns the track’s qualifying record. “The teams get better, the cars get better and the engines get better. We ran strong there in June. We were a top-five car and had to pit late for gas, but I look forward to it.”
Jimmie Johnson is the WagerWeb.com favorite at +425 this week coming off last week’s win at the Brickyard. Pocono’s track is similar to Indy, where Johnson has won back-to-back Brickyard races. Johnson has three wins, nine top-5s and 14 top-10s at Long Pond, where he finished seventh in the Pocono 500 on June 7. He has not won at the track since 2005, however.
“I feel good,” he said. “The victory this last weekend is helping that a lot. We’ve been so close to winning races, but there’s nothing better than pulling into Victory Lane and closing the deal. … [There has] just been a lot of races where we’ve been fast. I feel very good about what’s been going on.”
Look for Carl Edwards (+650 on WagerWeb.com) to be a factor. He led 103 laps at the June race but gambled on fuel and lost to Stewart. Edwards has two wins, four top-fives and five top-10s in nine starts. He has led at least a lap in six of the nine events.
Chevrolet dominated the first race at Pocono with five of its entries finishing in the top 10. That race also was where the shootout restarts were introduced.
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