By Staff
Ah yes. The peaceful, serene, romantic Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania, a very popular destination for newlyweds and families looking for a quiet vacation.
That won't be the case this weekend, though, as the France family's traveling circus known as NASCAR is coming to town. This is one of the most unique track configurations in the circuit. You see, it doesn't have four turns like normal. It actually only has three. This 2.5 mile triangle shaped track has many distinctive features that sets itself apart from all the rest. To start with, the main straightaway is the longest of all the tracks on the schedule. Each corner is banked at a different angle and the radius of each corner is different as well.
Last year's rookie sensation Carl Edwards won the first race there and Kurt Busch won the second race. In 2004 Jimmie Johnson won both races there and after a very impressive race last week, where he drove from starting 42nd to finish sixth, I am making him my favorite to win on Sunday. A dark horse for the win has got to be Jeff Burton, who is having a resurgent year and after many consistent finishes finds himself seventh in points.
An update on Tony Stewart finds the defending NEXTEL Cup champion feeling better and expecting to run all 500 miles on Sunday after getting out of the car early in the last race due to his broken scapula.
Jimmie Johnson may be leading the championship points battle but Matt Kenseth is walking tall after winning last week's race at Dover. Matt is second to Johnson but only 74 points back.
All three of our homegrown drivers qualified for the race at Dover with the Rocket Man Ryan Newman starting from the pole position. Surprisingly, that was his first pole of the year. However, the Alltel team just couldn't get the car dialed in for Ryan and he was relegated to a 14th place finish. This was the highest finishing local driver as Tony Raines finished 26th and David Stremme finished 41st after suffering overheating problems 299 laps into the race.
This coming Wednesday, June 14th Ryan Newman will be back home in South Bend to race USAC midget cars at the South Bend Motor Speedway for what I am sure will be a sold out show. This is a unique opportunity to see one of our local NASCAR stars in action.
Enjoy the race this weekend, but if you miss the action live you can get all of the information you need by visiting www.thatsracin.com. This is my Internet home where you can find more thoughts and comments from me in my blog “Turn 3”. Simply click on the yellow box called Inside Line.