The 2009 Pocono 500 turned into a race of firsts in NASCAR history, and in doing so it opened some eyes. It also illustrated some continuity in present-day NASCAR, proving anew the cliche about the more things changing. Looking back at this Pocono 500, some of what stood out -
*** The big story entering the Pocono 500 was the new two-abreast restart rule. It got its first test in this race and the results were shockingly mixed. In terms of concept and execution the rule worked fine and proved right away to be better than the old restart rule. But the shocking aspect was what didn’t happen. Where the rule should have had the greatest impact – increasing lead changes – it instead wasn’t relevant to anything. Though there were a couple of battles for the lead, notably Laps 35-37 when Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards ran down Jimmie Johnson and they raced two-by-two for the majority of three laps, there was no particular overall improvement in passing, certainly not to the level one could expect.
Whether some changes to the restart rule are necessary is a question far too early to ponder, though I’m not in favor of letting the leader choose which line in which to restart – letting the leader restart on the outside wound up doing no good in terms of giving second place a shot at taking the lead.
*** That Hendrick Motorsports – and by this I include Tony Stewart’s satellite team – and Roush/Fenway all but monopolized the race is a bit of a surprise given the Toyota challenge the last couple of seasons. But Hendrick and Roush controlled this race from the opening lap, a pattern of the season that may get worse as far as other teams’ chances go.
*** The biggest disappointment was – once again – Dodge. Penske Racing somehow got a top-ten out of Sam Hornish, and got nothing out of Kurt Busch (who blew up) and David Stremme (who hit the wall). Petty/Gillett Enterprises meanwhile had an encouraging run but it blew up at the end – Kasey Kahne spun out of the top five and AJ Allmendinger ran out of gas on the last lap while in tenth. Reed Sorenson salvaged 20th after yet another mediocre run while Elliott Sadler did likewise finishing 25th.
*** Toyota’s effort showed the need for the manufacturer to step up building up its other teams. Joe Gibbs Racing is the obvious front runner yet if they’re off the pace the other Toyotas haven’t gotten enough help to outright win. Kyle Busch ran in the top ten but was outpowered all day and ultimately fell to 22nd while Denny Hamlin gagged on the start and never recovered. It was the Mateschitz and Waltrip Toyotas who got something out of Pocono for Toyota, as David Reutimann and Marcos Ambrose finished in the top-ten and Brian Vickers ran there most of the day before getting shuffled to 21st.
Pocono proved anew Toyota’s need to reinforce its teams aside from Joe Gibbs Racing.
*** That Tony Stewart’s team is a Hendrick satellite in basically every sense of the term has been clear since Stewart bought into Gene Haas’ outfit. The engineering help Stewart-Haas gets has made them winners – but it clearly is coming at the expense of RCR and Earnhardt-Ganassi. That Juan Montoya finished eighth is a miracle because he was slow all day while Martin Truex was only somewhat better. The RCR cars salvaged much better finishes (other than Kevin Harvick) than what they actually showed in on-track muscle even though Clint Bowyer displayed some muscle in a late run to the top five.
*** If people thought Dale Junior would now show real muscle with a new crew chief, they’d better rethink that prospect, as all the old issues before the change – a car that never responded to changes and finished poorly accordingly – were there again.
The Pocono 500 thus saw the usual mixture of too little of the surprising and too much of the disappointing that is common to modern NASCAR. The next chapter in the story of Pocono’s firsts (in the restart rule and in Tony Stewart’s career) comes at Michigan, while Pocono awaits the start of August for another shot.