NASCAR Cup Series

Stormy weather and cars banging together

Published Jun. 8, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

Darrell Waltrip

Well, another Sunday in Pocono is in the books. Wasn’t that a pretty wild thunderstorm that rolled through there right before the race started? Heck, at one point there I didn’t even know if they were going to get the race in or not.

Once it did get going you saw pretty much a typical Pocono race. See, the race is just so long. You can’t run your car hard all 500 miles. Drivers have to pace themselves. So a lot of times during that race, drivers aren’t racing. They are simply pacing. Sure it’s not that exciting but it’s the nature of the beast. You simply have to take care of your equipment and be there at the end.

That’s exactly what Denny Hamlin was doing. He knew he had a really fast car. He’s clearly the master of Pocono. It was his fourth victory there plus his seventh top-10 finish in only his ninth race there. So he easily has Pocono dialed in.

Before we got down to the end there, we saw tire and fuel strategy being played. As we tell you a lot of time, a place like Pocono where fuel-mileage strategy always comes into play is where you run the race backwards. If you can go, for example, 35 to 40 laps on fuel, well that’s your final pit window. So then you start planning the race so you are on pit road in that final fuel window so you can make it to the end.

Tony Stewart was a good example Sunday of how a driver can save fuel. You saw in-car camera shots where Tony at times was turning the car off and coasting to save fuel. If you can do it as much as he was, you obviously can save a lot of fuel. It’s pretty simple actually – if the engine isn’t running, well by golly it isn’t burning any gas and that was the whole point of what Tony was doing.

You saw a lot of cars, like the No. 24 of Jeff Gordon and the No. 9 of Kasey Kahne being up and down all day. The nice thing about Pocono being so big is the ability to make green-flag pit stops to work on your car and not lose a lap. That’s important. Also the wave-around rule allows you to come back around and get on the tail-end of the lead lap. Now remember that you can’t pit if you take the wave around. You then can pit the next time by, come out and still be on the lead lap.

So the first three-quarters of Sunday’s race were pretty predictable. You knew things were going to tighten up in that last 30 to 50 laps, and they did. You saw the strategy being played. You saw strong players early in the race, like Clint Bowyer, clearly struggle at the end of the race.

Then we had that final episode between Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick. Look, the truth is I could come down on either side of this one. I could say that Kevin held his line and Joey turned into him. You could make that case. Let’s face it, when you go into a corner, well folks, sometimes you have to turn left. You could say that Joey put himself in that position.

Now I know it’s the end of the race, there are only two laps to go and you don’t want to give up a spot. Sometimes though, discretion is the better part of valor, so maybe Joey should have given the line to Kevin since Kevin already was on the inside. Let’s face it; the guy on the inside is always going to prevail. The old short-track rule comes into play here – eight tires are better than four. You are going to body slam the guy on the outside, he will keep you from hitting the wall and you will go on. Unfortunately in that scenario, the guy on the outside is going to pay the price.

Those are things that Joey will learn. Sometimes you have to give a spot to simply keep from losing it all. But just so we are clear, I am not saying Joey did anything wrong. I am also not saying Kevin did anything wrong. Truth is, though, that accident could have been avoided. Kevin could have given Joey a break. Joey could have realized Kevin, on the inside, already had the line. All that said, I am pretty darn sure that Joey learned more in that accident than Kevin did.

I also applaud Joey for what he did after the race and having the fire and passion to go confront Kevin. I have been hard on the kid a couple times already in his early career for similar episodes where he simply dropped his head and walked away. So I applaud him Sunday for standing up for himself. That’s what you are supposed to do. That’s how things get worked out.

Now Denny Hamlin wasn’t that far away from taking the white flag and the race would have been over, but instead he saw the yellow flag. That set up the big crash on the backstretch where AJ Allmendinger crowded his teammate Kasey Kahne down into the grass. The car hooks, goes back across the track in front of the field and wrecks about 10 race cars.

Racing is unpredictable. You never know what is going to happen next and that’s exactly what the end of the race Sunday at Pocono was. The bottom line was the best car won. It was a great day for the Joe Gibbs Toyotas. It was nice to see Jimmie Johnson get a good finish.

It was also really nice to see Sam Hornish Jr. up there leading the race. I tell you this all the time, but Sam Hornish can drive a race car. If they can give him a car that will stay under him and not sideways on him all the time, Sam has proven to me he has the talent to drive the car. Where Sam struggles is trying to tell the crew what the car needs to keep it from being so loose he spins it out all the time. That’s something they all need to work on to help the boy out.

Overall it was a good race at Pocono and the ending was really exciting. It’s nothing different from a play or movie. What’s the best part? The payoff at the end. Everything builds and builds until the big finish. That’s the same way it was Sunday in Pocono and it was pretty exciting ending.