Believe it or not: Was this Pocono truck race too short?
LONG POND, Pa. – A 50-lap race? That’s what the Camping World Truck Series drivers were scheduled for when they made their Pocono Raceway debut Saturday.
The track invited the series to the 2.5 triangular oval for the first time and used it to test out a unique Saturday show – a 50-lap truck race and a 50-lap ARCA race.
The truck race actually went 55 laps because of a couple of late accidents, and it came with mixed reviews as teams had one pit stop to get their trucks better in the event and those who found trouble got little time to recover.
“It was a cool shootout-style formula,” said race winner Elliott Sadler after the quick 137.5-mile event. “Our 500-mile [Cup] race here, if it was a 400-mile race it probably would be a lot more fun to watch and a lot more stuff going on.”
While Sadler was all for it, Todd Bodine left frustrated. He was involved in an accident on lap 41 and could only get back up to 12th. If he just had another 20 laps, he might have been able to work back to the front.
“It was way too short,” Bodine said. “If it was even 75, we could have gotten back to the front and raced them. Fifty laps? That’s a little ridiculous to bring us here for that.
“It was a good show. It just needed to be longer.”
The race included 18 laps under caution and had six restarts in an event that lasted just 1 hour, 13 minutes.
“I loved it; I thought it was a great distance,” said Denny Hamlin, who finished ninth driving for Billy Ballew Motorsports. “You couldn’t get more per lap excitement right there. Fifty laps was a perfect amount for this race track.
“Hopefully they look at something like that for the future of the Cup Series.”
Kasey Kahne, who was leading before a restart on lap 50, said it was a strange race and wished it would have been 100 laps.
“I was actually kind of getting nervous like you actually get to where you are thinking that the race is going to be over in no time,” Kahne said. “On lap 25, I was a little bit nervous that it was over so quickly. … It was a lot of fun as a driver. It was a good time and I think it was a good show so that’s why I say it should be longer.
“These series seem to have longer races than a Sprint-car race. I felt like it was a Sprint-car race. I’m cool with a Sprint-car race, too, but not here.”
The one thing that was good was the crowd. An estimated 40,000 people attended the race on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
“There was a lot of sense of urgency on restarts with 25, 20 laps to go because it was such a short race,” Sadler said. “We saw a lot of pushing, we saw a lot of bump drafting, a lot of side drafting, which I think is good racing.
“I think it’s the quality of the race and not the quantity that the fans want to see. So it’s 50 laps off good hard racing, I think the fans should be happy with that.”
