This afternoon, the NASCAR Cup Series will take on the “Tricky Triangle”, located in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, located about 100 miles west of New York City in the Pocono Mountains. The field has been set, and 37 drivers have their eyes on the hardware that’s up for grabs at the end of 160 demanding laps and 400 grueling miles.
Practice and Qualifying Report
Denny Hamlin, who holds the record for the most wins at Pocono Raceway, with seven, will start on the pole position, after clocking a time of 52.144 seconds around the three-turn racetrack. He will start alongside Chris Buescher, who finished behind Hamlin two weeks ago at Michigan International Speedway and hoping to sneak his way into the Playoffs with a win. The pressure is on the rest of the top-5 as well, as Carson Hocevar, who’s been fast every week, is still hunting for that elusive first-career victory, as is John Hunter Nemechek, who’ll roll off fourth on the grid. Rounding out the top-5 is Cole Custer, who’s had an abysmal season so far and looking to salvage the rest of his season by potentially getting lucky, as he did back in 2020 at Kentucky Speedway, which has been his first win to-date thus far.
In both practice and qualifying, drivers had issues throughout the afternoon. One of those drivers being points leader William Byron, who slammed the wall, was expected to go to a backup car, but the team will instead repair their primary car and roll of 31st come green flag.
Cody Ware also had issues, spinning in practice, while Josh Berry and Bubba Wallace were not able to make qualifying laps. Brennan Poole’s vehicle failed inspection four times, and will not get pit selection, was not allowed to make a qualifying lap and will have to serve a drive-through penalty at the start of the race. He also had his car chief ejected and will have a long Sunday ahead of him.
Polesitter, Denny Hamlin, had a few positive takeaways post-qualifying, after picking right up where he left off at from Michigan, after skipping Mexico City for the birth of his son.
“Truthfully, I’m on a run. I don’t know how else to say it. Everything is going really well right now. You know inevitably it’s not going to keep going forever, but right now it is” (Hamlin).
Last weekend’s winner, Shane van Gisbergen, looks to build off his Mexico City momentum, qualifying 23rd for the Great American Getaway 400. The New Zealand driver feels like the pressure is off of him, now that he’s locked himself into the post season and looks to have fun and learn as much as he can every week.
“It was always our goal to win. There’s probably less pressure on road courses now. We can play with our strategy if we want to try and get playoff points now and stuff like that.” van Gisbergen emphasized. “But yeah, probably less pressure. We can enjoy the road courses a bit more. But yeah, the ovals, we just need to keep doing what we’ve been doing; keep our head down, keep improving every week, and try and keep getting good results. We’ve been frustrated with top-20s the last couple of weeks, which is a huge improvement for us for how we started. Our potential is getting a lot better, and hopefully we keep getting close to that back-end of the top-10. That would be good” (van Gisbergen).
Race Prediction
Denny Hamlin initially won the 2022 race at Pocono Raceway, the first event in the NextGen car, until he was disqualified in post-race inspection. He redeemed himself in 2023, winning that race and with his pole for today’s race, you can expect Hamlin to be a contender all afternoon, for a stage win or two as well. Kyle Larson usually runs well every trip to Pocono, as does Chase Elliott. Despite not posting a qualifying lap, Bubba Wallace was second-fastest and if he and his crew chief play the strategy game, they can possibly find themselves in the top-5 when the checkered flag flies.
As noted prior, Carson Hocevar has been fast and ruffled a lot of feathers on track. Hocevar let it be known in the media center how he feels about his recent on-track antics with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
I feel like we have a good relationship or, you know, had one. I was just running behind him (in Mexico City), just kind of logging laps and, you know, just locked up in a very dumb spot. And it was just so dumb, really. Just a mistake that didn’t need to happen and didn’t want it to happen. But there’s nothing that I could do or say. You know, I can’t buy him a Hallmark card and, you know, really make things better. So, it sucks. It sucks for me because he’s the only NASCAR driver that owns a sprint car team, and I love sprint cars. So it sucks because I want to go talk to him about sprint cars. So, yeah, hopefully everything can be set, but I know that the scorecard has me ahead right now, unfortunately” (Hocevar).
The green flag for the Great American Getaway 400 will wave at 2:30PM EST/11:30PM PST on Prime Video, and this will be the final race for Prime this season, after mostly positive reception from fans, industry members and journalists alike! It’s not too late to take up on the free trial offer to catch the final race of the season, as Denny Hamlin looks to snag his fourth win of the season and extend his Pocono win record, adding trophy number eight to his already large case. Don’t miss any of the action and be sure to tune in come race time!
Sources
Hamlin, Denny. Post-Qualifying Media Notes. Pocono Raceway, 2025. Provided by Toyota Gazoo Racing.
van Gisbergen. CHEVROLET NCS AT POCONO: Shane van Gisbergen Media Availability Quotes
Hocevar, Carson. CHEVROLET NCS AT POCONO: Carson Hocevar Media Availability Quotes
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