In the week leading up to the Pocono race, IndyCar
announced that all three rounds of the Triple Crown
(Indy, Pocono and Fontana) would feature 3 x 3
starting grids. (LEF T) Marco Andretti headed up an
all-Andretti Autosport front row in Pennsylvania.
With ticket prices ranging from just
$25 to $100, the Pocono crowd arrived
in sufficient force for the track owners
to turn a small but encouraging profit.
INDYCAR
ACES STAR
AT POCONO
Scott Dixon’s 2013
victory at Pocono
meant he added his
name to a list of
winners that reads
like a who’s who of
IndyCar greats from
the 1970s and ’80s
including Johnny
Rutherford, Al and
Bobby Unser, Rick
Mears and Mario
Andretti. However,
A.J. Foyt (BELOW,
winning in 1975)
is the track’s most
successful driver,
with four Ws.
Traditionally a leg
of Indy car racing’s
Triple Crown, the
Pocono 500 ran for
the last time in 1989.
POCONO WORTH A TRI
“The Tricky Triangle” is a hit with IndyCar drivers and fans after a 24-year hiatus
Phillip Abbott/LAT
LAT archive
After almost a quarter-century absence,
Pocono Raceway appeared to win the
hearts and minds of those on both side of
the catchfence when it returned to the
IndyCar Series schedule in early July.
Bucking the recent trend of falling
spectator numbers at IndyCar’s oval
races, the Sunoco 400 drew an unofficial,
but genuinely believable 30,000-plus
fans for the first year of a three-year deal
between IndyCar and the family-owned
2.5-mile tri-oval track in Long Pond, Penn.
“When I sat down with Randy Bernard
[IndyCar’s former CEO] to try and finalize
this deal, I was adamant about having the
same date – July 4th weekend – and
three years,” said Brandon Igdalsky, the
president and CEO of a circuit which held
its first IndyCar race back in 1971, under
the auspices of his grandfather and track
founder Joe Mattioli. “I think you need
three tries at it to get some momentum.”
As well as being the return of a
much-missed favorite, the Sunoco 400
was the second round of IndyCar’s
revived Triple Crown of “endurance”
races, along with the Indy 500 and the
season-closing MAVTV 500 at Auto Club
Speedway in Fontana, Calif. For next year,
Igdalsky hopes to have the Pocono race
increased to 500 miles – it was 400 only
because of ultimately groundless worries
about fitting into ABC’s three-hour TV
window – and says that the Indy Lights
support race may be moved to Sunday to
“give the fans more bangs for their buck.”
It’s been a while, but Dixon and his TCGR crew
hadn’t forgotten what to do in Victory Lane.
DIXON PLAYS THE NUMBERS GAME
With victory at Pocono, Scott Dixon,
who’s now in his 12th season with Chip
Ganassi Racing, took not only the first
win for both himself and Chip’s team in
almost a year, but also the 30th Indy car
win of his career, and Honda’s 200th.
More significantly, it appeared to signal
a return to form for Honda, as HPD’s
latest-spec engine proved notably more
fuel efficient than the Chevrolet units,
which continued to have an edge in
outright pace during qualifying.
“We’d planned to introduce this spec a
little later in the season,” said HPD
technical director Roger Griffiths. “We didn’t
build it as a superspeedway engine, but it
seems to work here. All went to plan at the
Mid-Ohio test, so here we are. Honestly,
I’m taken aback by how well we did!”
The result revived Dixon’s hopes for a
third IndyCar title, moving him to within
65 points of championship leader Helio
Castroneves, but he’s now Honda’s only
realistic shot at powering the 2013 champ.
