LONG POND, Pa. — The tricky confines of Pocono Raceway have a habit of favoring fuel strategy in NASCAR Cup Series races.
Crew chiefs are trying to ensure they won’t get fooled again.
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Paul Wolfe, three-time champion crew chief of the No. 22 Team Penske Ford and driver Joey Logano, emphasized Saturday that strategy will be at the forefront of his and every other crew chief’s mind in Sunday’s race at Pocono (1 p.m. ET, Prime Video, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). But in order to capitalize when opportunity presents itself, their drivers also need a good race car.
“Obviously, you’ve gotta have a car that handles well and has decent speed, but these races are so much about strategy and how to play that,” Wolfe told NASCAR.com. “A lot of it just really depends on if you get cautions or not. That’s really when it starts changing.
“So yeah, having a game plan, knowing what you can maximize from a fuel strategy standpoint as far as what you feel like you can save depending on your driver.”
Teams will also traverse the “Tricky Triangle” with a new right-side tire from Goodyear. Wolfe said feedback from Logano indicates no significant change in feel behind the wheel, but an improvement from previous tires at other intermediate tracks on the circuit.
“Based off of practice, I don’t think we’re going to have the issues we’ve had at some other places with this construction and seeing the cords after a fuel run,” Wolfe said, “So I think knowing that’s not a concern, I think it’ll be more of a Pocono-type strategy setup.”
Another unique wrinkle at Pocono is its pit road, the longest and widest on the NASCAR circuit but one which features new timing lines to measure competitors’ rolling speed. Officials permitted teams to measure and roll at pit-road speed during Saturday’s practice, a unique addition to the session.
“Typically, they don’t like guys to practice pit-road speeds right during practice sessions,” Wolfe said. “We’ll look at that, just to kind of see where we were at the game there, but yeah, just remeasured, replaced some timing lines, basically, which I don’t know that it’s going to have a huge impact on pit road (Sunday), but just something new, something for us to pay attention to.”
Brakes have also come into focus after some rotors failed two weeks ago at Nashville Superspeedway. Pocono is no stranger to brake failures itself, with multiple drivers experiencing issues over the years.
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“I think what’s unique about Pocono is you do use a lot of brake rub for the biggest track as this is,” Wolfe said. “We have those long straightaways where you get the big heat swings in the rotors, and guys are trying to tune cars with different brake pads or packages, I guess you’d say that work on the car balance rather than not just using the brakes to slow the car down, but using brakes to make the car handle differently. So when you start doing that, you start stressing certain rotors more than others, and then we have options as far as what we call a light-duty rotor versus a heavy-duty rotor. Pretty basic is what the meaning of them: one’s lighter and one’s heavier.
“Typically, you think running a lighter one’s not a problem here, but if you get yourself in some weird brake-pad combinations, I think that’s where you can get yourself in trouble. Obviously, I don’t know where the field is, but I’m sure there’s different brake rotors and pad combinations throughout the field tomorrow. We talked about it coming here. It’s definitely something on our radar as we like to use that as a tuning tool, but you’re weighing out risk and reward.”