Dr. Diandra: Pocono Scouting Report

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers hold three of the top-four positions in the point standings coming into Pocono. With 11 of the 19 drivers who won last year still winless — and five of those drivers having previous Pocono wins — expect fierce competition. But can any amount of desire overcome JGR drivers’ excellence at this unique Pennsylvania track?

Why this triangle is so tricky

Pocono approximates a scalene triangle, meaning that all three sides are different lengths. That in turn requires all three turns to have turn radii.

There’s an additional complication, however. Each corner has a different amount of banking.

• Turn 1, modeled after Trenton Speedway, has 14 degrees of banking, but the smallest turn radius at 675 feet.

• Turn 2 has eight degrees of banking, just like the Indianapolis oval. Its turn radius of about 750 feet is comparable to Atlanta Motor Speedway.

• Turn 3 is modeled after the Milwaukee Mile. It has only six degrees of banking but the largest turn radius at 800 feet.

The variations in track geometry and topography make it impossible for a crew chief to optimize a race car for all three turns.

The triangular configuration and 2.5-mile length create long straights. Pocono’s main straightaway is 3,740 feet, just 60 feet shorter than Daytona’s frontstretch — and 100 feet longer than the entire Martinsville track.

Prioritizing past winners

Of the 19 wins by Cup Series drivers running this Sunday, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers earned 13 — 68.4% — of them.

Denny Hamlin leads in absolute number of wins (six), as well as highest win rate among 2023 full-time drivers (18.2%).

• All four of Kyle Busch’s Pocono wins came while driving for JGR. Busch has the second-highest win rate at the track: 11.4%.

• Martin Truex Jr. has won twice at Pocono in 33 starts, giving him a win rate of 6.1%.

• Joey Logano’s sole Pocono win came in 2012 under the JGR banner.

Chris Buescher, Ryan Blaney, Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick each have one Pocono win.

The metric matrix

The Metric Matrix below shows the top drivers in my calculations for Pocono Raceway. NG indicates that the calculation includes only Next Gen car races. The top-10 rate, top-five rate and win rate are career averages. On the graph, the darker the purple, the better.

Hamlin and Busch were disqualified from last year’s Pocono race, which erased their first- and second-place finishes. I manually increased their ranking in the first category to give them some credit for running well. That puts Denny Hamlin, who starts eighth, in the highest position on the metric matrix.

Kyle Busch posted the second-fastest lap time in practice but qualified in 25th place. Last year, however, Michael McDowell started 25th and finished sixth.

Three of the four JGR drivers appear in the matrix. Any one of them is a good bet. If you're looking for longer odds, teammate Christopher Bell qualified fifth. Bell finished fourth at Pocono last year, but he’s got only two top-10 finishes there in five races.

Harvick and Keselowski drive the only two Fords to make the matrix. Both have won at Pocono. Harvick ran mostly in the top-10 last year, but finished 27th after being caught up in an accident. Harvick also had the 8th-best 10-consecutive-lap average.

All four Hendrick Motorsports drivers appear in the matrix, but they split the same way they've split all season. Byron took the pole and Larson qualified third while Bowman starts 20th and Elliott 35th. Elliott spun during his qualifying lap.

Honorable mentions

Daniel Suárez finished third at Pocono last year but has a career average finish of 15.0 and only four top-10 finishes in 11 races.

Tyler Reddick could be a surprise high-finisher given his strong practice and qualifying. His stats aren't stupendous, but this is his first race at Pocono with Toyota and 23XI Racing.

Bubba Wallace finished eighth at Pocono in 2022. He also finished second at Michigan last year, and Michigan is a good comparaison track for Pocono. Wallace's career average finish at Pocono is 20.0.

Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano both ran well at Michigan last year. but Blaney crashed and Logano finished 20th at Pocono. The Fords showed themselves capable of speed in qualifying. They were fast in qualifying at New Hampshire last week and ended up taking three of the top-five finishing positions.