Who… should you be talking about after the race?
He got his first career win at Pocono Raceway in 2017, and on Sunday (July 14), Ryan Blaney took home his 12th in the Great American Getaway 400. Blaney led the final 44 laps on his way to his second victory of 2024.
With Denny Hamlin looming in his rearview, Blaney navigated four late restarts, coming away with the lead every time. His 44 laps led were the most of any driver. The reigning Cup champion leaves Pocono fifth in the current playoff standings as he looks to defend his 2023 title.
And don’t forget William Byron. Byron entered the weekend as a favorite to contend for the win, and while he didn’t lead a lap on Sunday, he ran a smart, solid race, and for Byron, that was what the doctor ordered.
After a hot start to the year, Byron has been inconsistent this summer. Pocono was his second top five in the last seven weeks, with three finishes of 19th or worse in the same stretch. Byron is already locked into the playoffs, so a strong finish to the regular season would but him in good position to contend for the title.
What… is the big question leaving this race in the rearview?
After Pocono announced a sellout for Sunday’s race, many fans struggled to get to the track on time for the race to start. A brief but heavy thunderstorm over the track complicated matters as parking attendants were told to take cover.
The track has vowed to make things right for fans:
It’s easy to second-guess the situation after the fact, and hopefully whatever the track offers will make things right to the fans who missed half of the event.
Going forward, is there anything that can or should be done?
Again, it’s easy to say what should be done, but in reality, much of the traffic pattern is determined by the track’s location and the roads leading to it. Rural locations tend to be restricted to roads that are mostly a single line in either direction, and rebuilding entire sections of them for a once-a-year event is impractical. If races were restricted to tracks with several multi-lane highways leading in and out, there wouldn’t be many tracks left.
It’s also easy to tell people to simply leave earlier, and it’s true, to an extent, that people do sometimes fall victim to lack of planning. There has been an uptick in ticket sales recently, and if there hadn’t been, people could have left at a later time and encountered no problem. Nobody really did anything wrong here.
Much like the weather, the traffic is something that happens from time to time.
Sometimes there’s nobody to blame for something.
Where… did the other key players wind up?
Pole winner Ty Gibbs has flirted with winning this year, but so far hasn’t quite been able to get over the hill. He had a top-10 car on Sunday, but this week, an engine failure kept the youngster from contending for more. Other than providing fans with a great tutorial in why a blown engine puts fluid on the track, Gibbs ended up without much to show for a much better race than his final position would indicate.
Pocono win leader Hamlin started third and had a car to contend for the win all day, leading 31 laps and winning the second stage. A couple of extra seconds in the pits to pack the fuel cell full ended up costing Hamlin track position, and though a couple of cautions gave him another shot, he didn’t have anything for Blaney at the end. Hamlin did get to second and had a clear shot at Blaney for the win, but he wasn’t able to shave off enough of the gap to make a difference.
Last week’s winner Alex Bowman rolled off sixth with renewed confidence, which he used to put himself in position on the final restart. He didn’t quite have the speed to run with Hamlin or Blaney at the end, but he did back up his win with a solid third-place performance on Sunday, one spot above teammate Byron. Teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott looked like they could make it a four-top-10 day for Hendrick Motorsports, but speeding penalties in the final stage took Larson out of the running, though Elliott was able to climb back to ninth.
When… was the moment of truth?
While it didn’t make much difference in outcome of the race on Sunday, the lap-121 crash between Corey LaJoie and Kyle Busch was a microcosm of Busch’s season. For the first time in his career, Busch is on the defensive instead of the offensive, trying to salvage his season.
The two raced for position as Busch blocked LaJoie once. LaJoie then turned hard left from the apron into Busch’s left-rear quarter panel. LaJoie tried to pin the incident on Busch, but the replay shows Busch held his line when LaJoie got into him.
While Busch’s performance has dropped in the Next Gen era that came with shortened practice sessions, 2024 has been dismal. Busch has at least one win in each of the last 19 seasons, a Cup record, but that streak looks more in jeopardy each week.
But the move is also indicative of desperation on LaJoie’s part. Despite gains by Spire Motorsports, LaJoie hasn’t seen the improvement expected of him. Without a win in a national series, LaJoie could end up on the hot seat as his contract expires next year, and he’s driving like it already is.
NASCAR should be taking a look at LaJoie’s telemetry after the race, because the move looked like more than a racing incident, and LaJoie’s comment that Busch “hooked himself” holds no water. Busch held his line when LaJoie hooked him. Also, if it had been a pure racing incident, it seems as though LaJoie might have been more apologetic over the radio, especially considering the other cars that were collected; instead he and his team were anything but.
Even if the crash wasn’t intentional, an aggressive move off the apron into traffic is a move a driver with LaJoie’s experience should know better than to make.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
For the last race before a much-needed two-week break, the Cup Series rolls off to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the Next Gen car will make its debut on the famed oval circuit after three years of racing on the road course.
For the most part, racing on the Indy oval has been more about the prestige than the actual racing, with most events being underwhelming affairs in terms of on-track excitement, so the upcoming race will be an important one. The Next Gen has produced some decent racing on intermediates, but it hasn’t been as successful on flat tracks. Indy is a big, flat track, so what we’ll see is anyone’s guess.
How… likely are we to see a win from outside the current playoff cut line in the next five races?
It’s still possible, especially with Daytona International Speedway and its mayhem in the mix, but it doesn’t seem likely at this point. The drivers who seem like they’d be most likely to pull something out of their hats — such as Busch and Bubba Wallace — haven’t shown that they’re competitive enough recently. A couple of weeks ago, it looked like Chase Briscoe was inching closer, but he’s stalled out a little. Michael McDowell has struggled all year (though he’s as good as anyone at Daytona).
Wallace cut his deficit nearly in half this week and he’s been quietly making gains; if Ross Chastain has another misstep, those spots could swap hands if neither driver wins.
Leaving Pocono, though, nobody outside the current winners’ list has that winning look.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.
Traffic has been a major problem at Pocono for fifty years. That’s why I only went to the Modified Race of Champions there in September after it left Trenton Speedway. In 77. 78 and 79 it was on the big oval. From 1980 to 1991 it was on the 3/4 mile oval. The cars went down the front straight to the end of pit road, turned and went back up pit road and then turned down the front straight. Maynard Troyer ( google him), Geoff Bodine and Richie wont the first three. Other winners on the short track were RIchie, Geoff, Greg Sacks, Jimmy Spencer, Brett Bodine, Tony Hirschman Mike Stefanik and Satch Worley (google him). I met a guy from Rome who recognized the hockey sweater for a team I played for that played the Copper City Chiefs. I visited him in Rome for the Syracuse 200 (I got to see the Batmobile) and he took me onto Griffiss Air Force Base. He did the electrical modifications for the planes. They used the Daytona Super Speedway cars for the big track with the 460s and 454s and their short track cars for the 3/4 mile. Traffic even then was time consuming.