Pocono Race Review



    Chase Briscoe led 72 laps at Pocono today and captures his first victory with Joe Gibbs Racing and locks himself into the playoffs! I'll dive my thoughts into the race later because I've got stuff that I want to get off my chest about it. Furthermore, I'll dive into the most notable finishers, my thoughts on the race, and a discussion of the playoff grid with Briscoe winning.

Chase Briscoe

    I don't think that Briscoe had the fastest car in the field today, but they did a great job executing that final pit stop and Briscoe saved a ton. To his credit, Briscoe was able to fend off Denny Hamlin for the win and save enough fuel. This was not a normal Chase Briscoe race in my eyes, because that team worked on the car all day and never got worse. When Briscoe qualified on the pole 3 straight weeks, it just went backwards the entire race and the team never caught up on adjustments. Today, though, they played the strategy and got the win. Briscoe now locks himself into the playoffs after coming in to today's race 14th in the playoff standings. 

The Top 5

    Denny Hamlin ends up finishing 2nd at Pocono, a track that he has won at 7 times in his career. I think Hamlin had a top 3 car today, but just could not get past Chase Briscoe largely because of the dirty air. He did leave with a playoff point so a good day all things considered. Ryan Blaney came home 3rd and had a decent day overall as he fought his way from the back multiple times. Blaney was nabbed for speeding in the middle of the race, but he was one of the few cars that could navigate their way through the field on the long run. I think Chris Buescher might have had the best car today, but Buescher especially struggled on restarts. That said, he was able to rebound to 4th but didn't have enough time to challenge the leaders. Last in the top 5 is Chase Elliott, who had a quiet but strong 5th place run. I didn't think he was as good as Hamlin, Blaney, or Buescher but still ran really well today.


Surprise Finishers (Good)

    John Hunter Nemechek had a really solid day today. This was his 6th top ten finish as he finished in the 6th position today. This was a track that I think was one of Nemechek's best chances to win and that team had a solid run today. Erik Jones was decent today, but never was much of a threat. He ran around the top 15 most of the day and comes home 13th. He likely needs to win to make the playoffs, but this was a solid day for Legacy Motor Club.

    RFK Racing got all 3 of their cars inside the top 10 today and showed some decent speed. Ryan Preece was not amazing in the first half of the race, but he got some track position late in this race and got a great result of 8th out of it to keep in striking distance of the playoff cutline which I'll discuss more in a bit. Brad Keselowski finished 9th which looks good on the surface. This team, however, threw away multiple opportunities to stay up front in this race. They pitted when pit road was closed from the lead because they tried faking out some teams and screwing themselves over in stage 2. In stage 3, Keselowski stayed out when the SVG spun occurred leading to him restarting at the back of the field. Too Brad's credit, he did drive up through the field, but he could have won today.

    I'll give credit to Austin Cindric and Josh Berry today as good surprise finishers. Cindric ran up inside the top 15 for a decent chunk of this race and gets a solid result of 10th. Josh Berry gets a decent finish well after playing the strategy game to get some good stage points stage 2 today. He comes home to finish 12th after he fell a bit through the field on that last run.

    Ricky Stenhouse Jr. didn't finish well in this race as he finished 30th. That said, it was hilarious seeing Hocevar not wanting to pass him knowing that Stenhouse will get back at him at some point. Just wanted to highlight that because it was funny to see.

Surprise Finishers (Bad)

    23XI had a race to forget today. Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst both blew brake rotors and would end up finishing 36th and 37th. Wallace falls down to 15th on the playoff cutline as a result of the poor finish. Tyler Reddick didn't blow a brake rotor, but he was out of contention and was a lap down the entire final stage after the team changed his brake rotors at the end of stage 2. Reddick would end up finishing 33rd and this race goes down as another where Reddick has speed but does not get a good result.

    Hendrick Motorsports was not great outside of Chase Elliott today. Kyle Larson was not super fast today as he largely ran in the teens for most of the race. That said, he does come home to finish 7th which isn't bad but follows the trend he has had since his win at Kansas. Alex Bowman had an okay day as a whole, finishing 11th but he now falls to 16th on the playoff grid which isn't great. William Byron crashed in qualifying on Saturday, went to a backup car, and showed pace throughout the day. I'm not really sure what happened to Byron late in the race to where he fell back as much as he did. I think he took 2 tires on the last green flag cycle, but didn't have the speed to stay inside the top 20.

    Christopher Bell was another one of my favorites heading into this race and he was anything but that. He fell a bit during the first stage and then was caught up in the Kyle Busch wreck in stage 2. He was not able to recover too much, only mustering up a 17th place finish. Speaking of Busch, he had another awful week as he finished 20th. SVG was also cut up in that wreck and then wrecked a second time. He wound up finished 31th on the day.

    Spire had a disappointing weekend I'd say. Carson Hocevar showed a lot of speed in qualifying and was running 3rd when he nearly lost it coming off of 3 early on this race. Hocevar did run up inside the top 5 for a lot of this race, but they fell behind in stage 3 and could not recover. He would end up finishing 18th. Michael McDowell blew a brake rotor and wound up finishing 35th. Lastly, Justin Haley finished 19th but he wasn't talked about once today.

    The last driver I want to talk about is Ross Chastain, who was nowhere to be found today. Chastain has historically struggled at Pocono, but with the speed he showed especially at Charlotte earlier this season. I thought he would be better. That was not the case, and Ross ran outside the top 10 for most of the race. He ended up finishing 26th.

The Playoff Grid

    With Briscoe's win at Pocono, 11 drivers are now locked into the playoffs. Here is the updated cutline below:

  • Elliot +160
  • Reddick +107
  • Buescher +38
  • Wallace +29
  • Bowman +20
  • Preece -20
  • Allmendinger -59
  • Jones -62
  • Busch -63
  • Hocevar -72

    Realistically, Allmendinger and below need to win if they want to get in. Ryan Preece is the only one that I could see point his way in. That said, I think Buescher, Wallace, and Bowman need to worry a lot because there are still 3 road courses and 2 super speedways where drivers can win at. I think Elliott and Reddick are the only ones that are safe for the time being. I don't expect for there to be much points racing throughout most of the field, but rather drivers just going for the win. 

My Thoughts on the Race

    Pocono, I thought, was a decent race track with the Next Gen car when it first raced here in 2022. That said, the racing has gotten worse and worse with each race. I don't recall a single pass for the lead happening aside from a restart this race. Once a driver got in clean air, they could just air block to keep guys behind. We saw it with Chase Briscoe late in this race as he was saving fuel, but was also able to keep Hamlin and Blaney behind despite them going hard at the end. It was very hard to pass, which is isn't something new at Pocono. That said, the Next Gen does not do well at single groove tracks. Unfortunately, Pocono is not really a multi groove track and that was in full force in the final run.

    I enjoyed the strategy aspect of this race, as we got to see a lot of new faces up front and see some of the best cars have to work their way through the field. The strategy though, was not enough for me to say that this was a good race. The Next Gen car needs a lot of work. We've seen that the intermediate tracks have become noticeably worse with dirty air being more of a factor than ever before. We are getting to the point of the 550 package, which made air blocking and dirty air the worse that it had ever been. I don't know what the fix is, but I think that the conversation likely starts with either higher horsepower or reworking the diffuser. 

    I would ultimately give todays race a 4.5 or 5 out of 10. It wasn't an awful race but I did not enjoy race. I really hope that NASCAR can fix the sooner rather than later, because the dirty air issues will only get worse. I am looking forward to Atlanta next weekend though, as that has been an awesome race each time we have been there. 

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