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Pocono INDYCAR 400 Fueled by Sunoco Preview

Open Wheel racing returns to the Pocono Raceway this holiday weekend as the IZOD INDYCAR Series presents the Pocono 400 Fueled by Sunoco.

“The Tricky Triangle” hosted USAC and CART Indy-style 500-mile races as part of the “Triple Crown” from 1971-1989. The track, first discussed in 1965, is a 2.5-mile, three-corner circuit originally intended for open-wheel competition, with turns designed after those at Indianapolis, Trenton and Milwaukee.

Poor track conditions combined with mounting safety concerns brought an end to OW racing at Pocono after Danny Sullivan’s 1989 win, but the track has continued to host two NASCAR events each season since.

With the addition of SAFER barriers and a catch fence in 2010 and a full repaving and a new pit wall in 2011, a chance meeting by Pocono President/CEO Bryan Igdalsky and then IICS CEO Randy Bernard at the St. Petersburg race last year resulted in the event returning to the Pocono Mountains in 2013.

Only past-winners Michael Andretti, Bobby Rahal and AJ Foyt (car owners), Rick Mears (Penske Racing driver coach) and Johnny Rutherford (pace car driver) return to the track from the USAC/CART era. Current IICS driver Dario Franchitti raced a NASCAR Sprint Cup car at the track in 2008.

An April Firestone tire test at the track saw speeds nearly four MPH faster than the track record of 211.715 MPH set by Emerson Fittipaldi in 1989.

Indy winner Tony Kanaan comes to Pocono as the only driver with a chance to win the $1 million bonus offered by Fuzzy’s Vodka by winning the 2013 version of the Triple Crown at Indy, Pocono and Fontana. Al Unser is the only driver to have won the earlier Triple Crown bonus when he won at Indy, Pocono and Ontario in 1978.

Penske Racing’s Helio Castroneves leads Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay by nine points and by 55 over Marco Andretti in the series’ Championship battle.

James Hinchcliffe’s recent win for AA at Iowa Speedway, his third and the team’s fifth of the season, marks Chevrolet (7) as the favorite to take another win over Honda (3) at the track that, along with Fontana, most resembles Indianapolis in size and speed, and Hinchcliffe concurs. “The track is so different and it makes it very difficult to set up an Indy Car there. It’s very fast. I think it’s a similar kind of show to Indianapolis, and another long race; 400 miles. I really had no appreciation for what this place was like, even after watching it on TV. From the testing, I can assure you we’re going to have a great race.”

Returning to the track that has become a “home game” for the Andretti’s who live in nearby Nazareth, PA, third-generation driver Marco can receive track advice from Grandpa Mario and Papa Michael, both former winners here.

The series has seen seven winners in its first 10 events, with Hinch, Takuma Sato and Simon Pagenaud recording their first IICS wins this season.

POCONOTES:
• INDYCAR has announced that it will implement three-wide starts for series’ races at Pocono and Fontana. “We were able to analyze track data and compare our current start procedure from the Indianapolis 500,” said race director Beaux Barfield. “Given the speeds of our starts, the location of acceleration zones, the spacing between rows and the length of the front straights at each track, we’ve decided to move forward with a three-wide lineup for the initial starts.” All restarts will be single-file.

• Team Penske has won seven times and has captured six poles at Pocono.

• AJ Foyt Racing competed in every event at Pocono from 1971-1989. Foyt won at the track four times as a driver and earned two poles. He will not be present Sunday after recent hip replacement surgery.

• National Guard Panther Racing’s Ryan Briscoe will compete Saturday in an ALMS event at Lime Rock Park in between testing and racing Sunday at Pocono. “I won’t be here Saturday for practice and qualifying. It was a big bonus having the test day last week and then the open test on July 4 to get as much track time as possible, said Briscoe. Panther managing partner John Barnes said, “I’m not concerned about missing qualifying and having to start in the back of the field. Pocono is a big place and we’ll have 400 miles to help Ryan work his way to the front.”

• NASCAR first raced at Pocono in 1974.

• Race stats: 160 laps/400 miles. TV-ABC (live) at Noon (ET). Radio-IMS Radio Network SiriusXM Ch. 211.

• Who will win? Look for Indy winner Kanaan to capture the second leg of the Fuzzy’s Vodka Triple Crown for KV Racing Technology-Chevrolet. It takes a veteran to win a 400-miler.

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