Pocono Raceway

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Pocono Raceway is a superspeedway located in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania at Long Pond; it is the site of two annual NASCAR Nextel Cup races held just a few weeks apart in June and July.

Pocono Raceway has a unique design; it could be said to be a tri-oval, but the turns are much more severe than those of a more typical tri-oval such as Daytona and the track is really nearly a triangle; they have been likened somewhat to the hairpin-style turns of road courses. An additional complication is that none of the three turns is identical, nor are any of the three straightaways identical in length. Pocono Raceway is a scalene triangle. Finally, the banking of each turn is considerably less than on many other long ovals. Although the track is very long (2.5 miles) the severe nature of the turns tends to make the overall speeds much lower than at other tracks of similar lengths; restrictor plates are not needed here.

The odd design makes the setup of the car and the crews' ability to make chassis adjustments even more crucial here than at many other tracks; often it is the difference between a winning performance and near-disaster. Drivers tend to either love the track or hate it, largely depending on how well it suits their driving style and their crews' abilities.

Many fans contend that the 500-mile races at Pocono take too long, and that they would like to see them shortened to 400 miles. Some fans wouldn't mind seeing the track disappear from the schedule altogether, or at least reduced to one race. Others have called for a Busch Series or Craftsman Truck Series race to be held at Pocono; it is one of only two Nextel Cup oval tracks (along with Indianapolis Motor Speedway) that is not on either the Busch or Craftsman Truck schedule (although there are ARCA races at Pocono).

Pocono is one of a very few NASCAR tracks not owned by either Speedway Motorsports or International Speedway Corporation, the dominant track owners in NASCAR. It is owned by the Mattioli family, which also owns South Boston Speedway in South Boston, Virginia, and administers the Music City Motorplex (formerly Nashville Speedway USA) at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee.

See also: List of NASCAR race tracks

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