HighPoint.com 400 at Pocono Raceway

Front Runners highlights the drivers that lead laps, run fast laps, and run inside the top 10, 5, & 3 the most at correlated track types.

The NASCAR Cup Series makes is lone trip to the tricky triangle of Pocono Raceway on Sunday. For the first time in what seems like ages we may even have a dry weekend at the track.

Pocono doesn’t have any true similar tracks in terms of shape, length, and banking. At 2.5 miles long it is longer than any other intermediate track. The closest tracks in terms of length and banking are Auto Club (rest in peace) and Michigan. Despite the unique track design, we can still get useful information out of a good number of tracks. My incident adjusted speed metric shows useful correlation between Pocono and the three 1.5-mile ovals the Cup Series has raced at in 2023, as well as very strong correlation between Pocono and Nashville. I’m speculating, but I suspect that despite the significant difference in length, the correlation is due to the use of the same intermediate package, along with the 14 degree banking at Nashville being closer to Pocono’s turns than the 20 plus degree turns at the 1.5-mile tacks.

Given that we still six races to use if we only consider 2023 results from Auto Club, the 1.5-mile ovals, and Nashville, along with the 2022 Pocono results, I am focusing on just those six races to keep an emphasis on 2023 speed plus Gen 7 Pocono experience.

The charts below are sorted by percentage of laps led by default. There are also a few more columns that you can choose to display but for ease of display those columns are hidden by default.

Laps run inside the Top 10, 5, 3, and led as percentage laps driver completed at 2022 Pocono and 2023 Auto Club, Las Vegas, Kansas, Charlotte, and Nashville

[wpdatatable id=115]

Note – Since most books grade bets using the pre-inspection “unofficial” results, the chart above credits Denny Hamlin with a win here last year and Kyle Busch with a second place finish. As a result it does not credit Chase Elliott with a win, Tyler Reddick or Daniel Suarez with a Top 3, Christopher Bell or Kyle Larson with a Top 5, and finally it does not credit Erik Jones or Austin Dillon with a Top 10.

Thanks for checking out the Front Runners! Let’s WIN THE RACE!