Pocono 500 - NASCAR Race

Pocono Raceway (formerly Pocono International Raceway) is a NASCAR sanctioned superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania at Long Pond. It is the site of two annual NASCAR Nextel Cup races held just weeks apart in June and July.

Pocono Raceway has a unique design. Each turn is modeled after turns at 3 different tracks. Turn One was modeled after the now defunct Trenton Speedway, Turn Two is like Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Turn 3 is similar to The Milwaukee Mile.It could be said to be a tri-oval, but the turns are much more severe than those of a more typical tri-oval such as Daytona and the track is really nearly a triangle. They have been likened somewhat to the hairpin-style turns of road courses. An additional complication is that none of the three turns are identical, nor are any of the three straights identical in length. The long frontstrech often requires a gear change due to the high RPMs attained.

The banking of each turn is considerably less than on many other long ovals. Although the track is long (2.5 miles) the sharp nature of the turns tends to make the overall speeds much lower than at other tracks of similar lengths thus restrictor plates are not needed here.

The odd design makes the setup of the car and the crews' ability to make chassis adjustments even more crucial here than at many other tracks. Often it is the difference between a winning performance and near-disaster. Drivers tend to either love the track or hate it, largely depending on how well it suits their driving style and their crews' abilities.

Pocono 500 NASCAR Race Results

Below are the race results for Pocono 500, in order of finishing place.