After a thrilling race on the downtown Chicago streets last weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series moves to one of its most iconic venues, the 2.5-mile Pocono (Pa.) Raceway for Sunday’s The Great American Getaway 400 Presented by VISITPA.com (2:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
With Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman’s victory at Chicago, only four positions remain up for grabs with six races to go to formalize the 16-driver Playoff field. Sunday marked the second consecutive race a new driver earned a Playoff bid with Team Penske’s Joey Logano securing his position at Nashville two weeks ago.
Three former Pocono Raceway winners – Joe Gibbs Racing’s Martin Truex Jr., RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher and Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch – are still competing for their first win of the 2024 season to become championship eligible.
Martin Truex Jr. – ranked fifth, the highest points position of a driver without a win so far this year – has a pair of past victories (2015 and 2018) at the Tricky Triangle. Buescher, ranked 16th, earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at Pocono in 2016. And the two-time series champion Kyle Busch, who is a surprising 19th place in the standings, has celebrated in Pocono’s Victory Lane four times (2017, ’18, ’19, ’21) – second most among active drivers. Only defending race winner Denny Hamlin (seven) has more wins.
“Really looking forward to going to Pocono this weekend in our Interstate Batteries car,” the New Jersey native Truex said. “It’s one of our home tracks, as they say. I’ve won there a couple times but really excited to get back with the fast race cars [crew chief] James [Small] and all the 19 guys have been bringing to the track lately. We’re fired up and hope we can get another win at Pocono.
The regular season championship presents a compelling storyline in addition to the dramatic Playoff contention. Kyle Larson holds a slight 11-point edge over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott atop the championship – even having missed a race (Charlotte). The three-time 2023 winner Larson has never won at Pocono. Elliott, who has one win this season, was the 2022 Pocono race winner.
Should either 2021 series champion Larson or 2020 series champion Elliott win the regular season title, they would join Truex and Busch as the only multi-time regular season champions. 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick is now ranked a season high third place, 23 points behind Larson.
Also, with victories this year to secure their race for a championship are Joe Gibbs Racing’s Hamlin, Hendrick Motorsports’ Byron, JGR’s Christopher Bell, Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski, Bowman, Logano, Trackhouse Racing’s Daniel Suarez and Team Penske’s Austin Cindric.
Truex, his JGR teammate Ty Gibbs, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Buescher hold the current remaining four Playoff positions based on points. 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace is 17th, 45 points behind Buescher followed by Stewart-Haas Racing’s Chase Briscoe (-88 ) and Busch (-98).
Wallace has one top five and a pair of top 10s in 11 starts at Pocono. Briscoe’s best finish in four Pocono starts is 15th-place. In addition to his four wins at the track, Busch has 11 top-five and 18 top-10 finishes in 36 starts.
Busch finished ninth at Chicago – his first top-10 since an eighth place at Kansas eight races ago. The two-time series champ’s best finish of the season is third-place at Atlanta, the second race of the year. He is looking to extend his career winning streak to 20 consecutive years.
“You make your own luck, it’s when opportunity meets preparation and we just haven’t done that,” said Busch, driver of the No. 8 RCR Chevrolet.
Practice for the Great American Getaway 400 is Saturday at noon ET followed immediately by Busch Light Pole Qualifying. Both sessions will be televised live on the USA Network. At Pocono, the pole position has resulted in more winners (16) than any other starting spot. There have only been two back-to-back Pocono race winners in the last 20 years – Busch (2018-19) and NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2014 sweep).
