LONG POND, Pa. — In a race defined by attrition and strategy, Ryan Blaney emerged on the other end with his second victory of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season in the Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway.
While a rash of late cautions equalized everyone on fuel, that doesn’t mean pit road did not play its part. Specifically, it was part of pit road that tripped up a lot of drivers at the Tricky Triangle.
Sneaky Section 7 Dooms Contenders
Before the race, when the drivers came down to check their pit road speeds, section seven near the start/finish line grabbed a lot of teams’ attention. The majority of drivers had trouble staying under the speed limit of 55 mph during the prerace trip down pit lane.
As it turns out, those issues carried over to the race multiple times. On lap 55, Todd Gilliland became the first driver guilty of speeding in section seven.
Ultimately, it was a different issue that derailed Gilliland’s day when a brake rotor failed on his No. 38 Ford, leading to Gilliland hitting the turn one wall.
During the ensuing caution, pesky section seven claimed four more victims.
On lap 116, the field came down pit road for service, with numerous drivers taking two tires. Among them were Chase Elliott, Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson and Daniel Suarez. All four of them lost their track position due to speeding in section seven. They came back down to pit road to top off on fuel and get left-side tires before going to the tail of the field for the restart.
Out of that quartet, Gibbs figured to be the strongest contender for the win, starting from the pole and leading 21 laps in the early going.
The speeding penalty turned out to be a harbinger of things to come as the engine blew up on the No. 54 Toyota on lap 134, ending Gibbs’ day. In the garage afterwards, Gibbs briefly discussed the speeding penalty that set his team back.
“We had all of our lights to where we usually run them [at Pocono], and I guess all of NASCAR’s timing lines were all different and changed,” Gibbs said. “We were kind of winging it with the way the lights were.”
Among the four lap 116 speeders, Elliott bounced back the best, cracking the top 10 with a ninth-place finish. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Larson came in four spots behind him in 13th. Suarez settled for 16th in the final running order.
After the race, Larson echoed Gibbs’ thoughts on section seven.
“It sounds like section seven is different maybe than it was in the past,” Larson remarked. “Yeah, it was a bit of a bummer because I didn’t push it. I didn’t push it over max like I never thought that I would be speeding.”
Between the higher finish and acquiring more stage points, Elliott has unofficially taken the regular season points lead from Larson by three markers. Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin are not far behind at 15 and 20 points back, respectively, so the fight for those 15 playoff points is getting tight.
“I’m sure the top four is really tight,” Larson said about the regular season points battle. “But yeah, just try to keep plugging away trying to maximize our days. Even for how bad we were today, we maximized the best result we could for what was in front of us.”
As for the race winner Blaney, he did not have to worry about section seven as his pit stall was right in the middle of the section. For crew chief Jonathan Hassler, it was one less variable for the No. 12 team to worry about throughout the day.
“We were definitely fast in section seven,” Hassler said post-race. “I would say fortunate for us we pitted in that section, so we were going to be slower anyway. So we didn’t have to check up or make any adjustments.”
Look Ahead to Next Week
For the first time since 2020, the NASCAR Cup Series will return to the oval configuration of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the running of the Brickyard 400 next Sunday, July 21.
It will likely be tough to pass at IMS, so qualifying will be a big priority. Teams up and down pit road will be brainstorming ways to leapfrog their competitors for precious track position.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.
How fortunate for JGR Hamlin that Larson and Elliott were said to be speeding with 40 laps to go. They were right on his bumper and he gained a ton of points on both of them for regular season championship.