Kyle Busch, No. 18 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing
The next mission for NASCAR’s best driver this season is the tricky triangle at Pocono Raceway, where young Busch has never won. But with 10 victories this season in NASCAR Craftsman Trucks, Nationwide and Sprint Cup cars, Busch has shown that he can win any race. He has one top-five finish (fourth in his rookie season, 2005) and two top-10s in six trips to the Pennsylvania track. He was eighth in this race last year and 12th in the second race. “For me, I believe there’s a way that you drive the trucks, there’s a way you drive the Nationwide cars,” he said. “That’s full out, as fast as you can go. The harder you go, the faster you can go. (The COT cars), you have to pace yourself a little bit. You have to slow them down. You can drive them hard for the first three or four laps, then you have to start backing off, start slowing down, slowing up your entry, slowing down the center, just kind of moseying around the corner, trying to make the thing stick in one particular groove. I’ve found something that’s worked for me here recently in the past few weeks. I found it at Darlington. I won there. Then I finished third at Lowe’s. Then we won (in Dover). You know, we’re gaining on the car as well, too. But I think a lot of it is a little bit of driver. You got to stay calm when you can. You got to get going when the time’s right and, when you can, get riled up.”
Jeff Burton, No. 31 Chevrolet, Richard Childress Racing
Burton is another driver looking for his first Pocono win. He has six top-five finishes and 13 top-10s in 28 starts at the 2.5-mile triangle. He was 13th last June and 11th last August. “The fun thing about Pocono and the difficult thing is that every corner is different,” Burton explained. “You have to be good in every corner and you can’t sacrifice anything anywhere. Pocono is a very demanding race track physically and very demanding race track mentally. It’s one of our toughest tests we have all year. I think we’ve seen a tremendous amount of variance in speed throughout the year. These cars are very temperamental from one run to the next. It’s easy to get behind on a setup because the new car is such a challenge. The bumps, speed and braking at Pocono present a bigger challenge in figuring out the COT, mainly because of the splitter height.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports
Earnhardt has never won at Pocono but won the pole there last August before finishing second. He has four top-five finishes and five top-10s in 16 career starts there, and he was 12th in this race last year. “The track needs to be repaved,” Earnhardt said. “It’s real, real rough. It’s real rough. They paved this little strip in turn 3 in the third groove, and we’re all running around on it. It was real funny. When we first hit the track I saw that strip of asphalt in the third groove and I thought, man, I bet that’s got a lot of grip, and if I can figure out a way to get up there and run on it, I might find some speed. And by the end of the test, everybody was running there. That’s going to be slightly amusing, I think, to see in the race. (It will be) typical Pocono. It’s like a road course, in a sense. If you get just a tiny bit tight, you lose a lot of time because it’s such a long track. So guys are going to get spread out pretty good.”
Carl Edwards, No. 99 Ford, Roush Fenway Racing
Edwards is the only driver in the top five in the point standings who has won at Pocono. He drove to victory there as a rookie in 2005. It was one of his two top-five finishes there (he has no other top-10s). He was 14th last June and 21st last August. “I’m excited to go to Pocono,” Edwards said. “I feel confident that we have what it takes to run well there, even though we have struggled some at Pocono in our last few visits there. This is the first weekend I’ll be traveling between the Nationwide and Cup Series, so I’m looking forward to that as well.”
Jeff Gordon, No. 24 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports
Gordon is one of the best active drivers at Pocono with four wins, 15 top-five finishes and 21 top-10s in 30 starts. He won last June’s rain-shortened race and was fourth in the return trip in August. Despite his respect for track owner Joseph Mattioli, Gordon believes the track needs to be dramatically upgraded. “I love the Mattiolis and I’m a huge supporter of them, but their race track is outdated,” Gordon said. “It needs a ton of upgrades. I think that the fact that it’s in the Northeast is a positive thing, but I’m shocked that they’ve had two races as long as they have and I’ll be surprised if that stays that way for the future just because of the way this sports has grown and the markets that we need to be in. I’m as curious as anybody else is to see the future of that track.”
Jimmie Johnson, No. 48 Chevrolet, Hendrick Motorsports
Johnson is a two-time Pocono winner. He swept both races in 2004. He has four top-five finishes and seven top-10s in 12 starts there and was 42nd last June and fifth last August. “We tested really, really good at Pocono,” Johnson said. “I’d say we were right there on pace with the best cars, if not the best car. I’m very excited to go back. Last weekend we didn’t have the finish that we wanted. We practiced really well and qualified well and just missed a little something in the race. But we’re getting closer, and it’s really nice to see all this hard work pay off that the team has been putting into it. We’ve spent a lot of hours testing and put in a lot of hard work. I really look forward to the race and know that we’re going to be able to show that.”
Tony Stewart, No. 20 Toyota, Joe Gibbs Racing
Stewart is in need of a solid top-10 run after only one top-10 finish in the last five races, and that’s why he’s glad Pocono is next on the schedule. Stewart will be looking for his sixth straight top-seven finish there. In 18 starts at the track, Stewart has 13 top-10 finishes, including a win in June 2003. Stewart’s recent run of bad luck has dropped him from seventh to 11th in the standings.
| 
|