Pocono IndyCar 500 Fueled by Sunoco

Scott Dixon is the defending champion at Pocono.

Pocono Raceway calls itself “The Tricky Triangle”. But its Verizon IndyCar Series race shifts from 400 miles in 2013, to 500 on Sunday, and those extra 100 miles, coupled with double points, could be tricky when it comes to the outcome of the race- and perhaps the series’ championship.

“Adding 100 miles to Pocono, and double points, is going to be important,” said Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves. “So we’re going to focus on having a good setup. It’s going to be a long day; probably five to eight pit stops.”

Ed Carpenter, winner at the Texas oval for his own team a month ago, sees the extra 40 laps as getting more time to adjust your game plan and make improvements.

“The biggest difference is that it allows for more time to improve your position, more time for other people to make mistakes, and more time for alternate strategies to play out. I just think it makes it more intriguing to the teams.”

And Ryan Hunter-Reay, who shared the front row with his Andretti Autosport teammates at Pocono in 2013, saw the double points that were on the line at Indianapolis in May put his chase for the 2014 championship on a roller coaster ride.

“If one of your rivals has a bad day, and you have a good one, all of the sudden you’re right back on top of it,” remembered the Floridian who won the series’ crown in 2012. “Pocono (with double points) will carry a lot of weight,” said RHR, whose double-points win at the Indianapolis 500 put him 40 points into the lead over Will Power. But finishes of 16^th and 19^th at Detroit and 19^th in Texas dropped him 60 markers (now    ) behind Power. “Anything can happen very fast.”

Pocono’s Indy Car race, revived in 2013 after a 24-year absence, began in 1971 and ran until 1981 under USAC sanction, continued from ‘82 until ’89 as a CART race, and resurfaced as a Fourth of July Triple Crown event last year in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Scott Dixon won that revival race, averaging 192.864 mph, as Target Chip Ganassi swept the podium, scoring the 100^th win for sponsor Target in all forms of motorsports and the 200^th Indy car win for Honda.

Power and Castroneves (-39) come to the 2.5 mile triangle leading the point’s competition for Team Penske with Hunter-Reay (-41), Simon Pagenaud (-59) and Juan Pablo Montoya (-116) hoping that the double points race will close the Penske twins’ margin.

A driver who had success at Pocono a year ago, Marco Andretti, sits sixth in the points chase, 124 points behind the leaders and also looking for the double points to help his climb to the top. The Nazareth, PA driver won the Pocono pole in 2013 at a two-lap average of 221.273 mph. He finished 10^th on the lead lap. Grandpa Mario won the race in 1986; the same year that father Michael captured the pole.  The third-generation driver will be on probation for the next three races after he and his team were fined a total of $5,000 for ignoring the move – over flag at Houston in Race 1.

Another “smaller” team to watch out for at Pocono is the Schmidt Peterson/ Hamilton Motorsports racing group which  finished 1-2 in the second Houston race with Simon Pagenaud and Mikhail Aleshin standing on the two highest podium steps. Pagenaud also started P1 in Race 1.

POCONOTES:

• The usual twenty-two cars are entered for the 500-mile grind. Should be interesting to see how many are around at the finish.
• Carlos Huertas, winner of Race 1 at Houston for Dale Coyne Racing was fined $10,000 for rear wing height and fuel cell capacity violations; neither of which were deemed by IndyCar to have impacted the finishing order of the event.
• Mikel Aleshin, Jack Hawksworth, Carlos Huertas, Carlos Munoz and Juan Pablo Montoya will experience their first open wheel race at Pocono Sunday. The race is only the third of six oval events on IndyCar’s 18-race schedule.
• AJ Foyt Racing has competed in all 20 Pocono Indy car events since the track’s 1971 opening.
• Huertas’ win at Houston last weekend made him the 211^th different winner in the history of Indianapolis-type competition.
• All four full-season rookies (Huertas, Pagenaud, Aleshin and Hawksworth) were on the podium at the Houston doubleheader.
• It is unlikely that a smaller team will win on the high-speed Pocono triangle. Look for Power, Dixon or Andretti to reach victory lane.
• NBC Sports Network will have the race at Noon (ET) Sunday and qualifying on Saturday, tape-delayed at 7:00 pm (ET).

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

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