Dim
Pocono Memories
A
Smaller Track, USAC Stocks and More
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Unlike
New Hampshire, Pocono Raceway doesn’t sit on top of a previous track, but its
early history has some twists and turns, and there was a time when NASCAR was
but a bit player. Here’s a quick review.
This
is an old aerial of Pocono, showing the ¾-mile oval as well as the 2-1/2-mile
triangle.
The
first Pocono track was a 3/4-mile oval that, from the outset, was intended to
eventually be surrounded by the bigger “tricky triangle.” It ran its first race
in 1969, an ARCA event won by Dave Watson. Benny Parsons had started from the
pole.
After
that came a pair of USAC sprint car races, a NASCAR modified race, and a midget
race sanctioned by NEMA.
The
only thing that returned the next year was the NASCAR modified event, and
modifieds became the standard-bearers for the small track until its demise
after the 1991 season. Most of those races were NASCAR-sanctioned, but the Race
of Champions, a modified tradition originally held at Langhorne, was not a
NASCAR race for many years – and it isn’t today, with this year’s edition
scheduled for early fall at Lake Erie Speedway at the other end of
Pennsylvania.
In
1971, the big track opened, with races sanctioned by USAC, not NASCAR. Mark
Donohue won the opener, a race for what we now call Indy cars, beating Joe
Leonard, A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti and Billy Vukovich
Jr. Entered but in the garage by the one-quarter mark were Donnie Allison and
Cale Yarborough.
A
publicity shot from 1971 at Pocono, with Mark Donohue at right and the Unser
brothers (Al at left and Bobby center).
That
fall stock car racing arrived, but it was the USAC stocks, then largely
identical to NASCAR Grand Nationals (Winston didn’t take the name until ’72).
In September, Butch Hartman won a 500-miler over Foyt, Don White, Jack Bowsher and Lem Blankenship.
LeeRoy Yarbrough finished sixth, with several other NASCAR names much farther
down the list, including Siler City, N.C., resident Wayne Andrews, Jim Paschal
in his Grand American AMC Javelin, and young Geoffrey Bodine, who came in last.
For
the next couple of years, things remained pretty much the same: an Indy car
race, a USAC-sanctioned stock car race, and a modified race or two on the
smaller track (over the years, there also were a couple on the triangle).
NASCAR participation tailed off for the Indy car races but stayed with the
stocks, which usually ran on an off weekend for Cup. That caught up with USAC
in 1974, when Richard Petty dominated and won the Acme Super Saver 500. (For a
longer and better account of that, see this
past blog from TMC Chase – to whom we wish the best after double knee
replacement surgery.
A.J.
and Richard lead the field at the start of the 1973 Acme 500 at Pocono.
The
next year’s USAC race, run in late April, was won by Ron Keselowski (Brad’s uncle),
but with crowds, fields and purses down (only 30 cars started the 500-miler,
and half were in the garage before the checkers), Pocono had decided to give
NASCAR a chance, and that August, the Winston Cup Series came to town for the
first time.
It
never left. In 1982, a second race was added, and it’s been two per season
since then (although next year brings the bizarre 500-milers on consecutive
days).
The
year before the second Cup race USAC’s Pocono Indy car run came to an
inauspicious end. CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) had split off from USAC
in 1979, but the Indy 500 kept the two somewhat linked, like two prison
escapees still shackled at the ankle. By 1981, USAC’s “Gold Crown” championship
series consisted of Indy, Pocono and three dirt tracks from the Silver Crown
series (which still exists). CART drivers still showed up in numbers at Indy,
but not so at Pocono, and to fill out the field, USAC brought in some Silver
Crown dirt cars, creating a most bizarre event. The race lasted less than two-thirds
of the advertised distance.
George
“Ziggy” Snider’s #84 Indy car alongside Duke Cook’s #25 Silver Crown dirt car at
Pocono in the too-weird Van Scoy Diamond Mines 500 in 1981.
The
next year CART sponsored the event, but that sanctioning body’s style never
caught on with ovals, and Pocono was off the schedule after 1989, only recently
rejoining (now with IndyCar).
After
that, except for the Race of Champions on the 3/4-mile in its non-NASCAR years
and the addition in 1983 of ARCA races as preliminaries on Cup weekends, Pocono
was pretty much all NASCAR – and pretty much two weekends of racing per year –
until the 2017 return of IndyCar.
That’s
a shame, and it’s a waste for tracks today, too. Income from NASCAR ticket
sales can’t possibly return to its 2007 level, and TV revenue likely isn’t
going to stay where it is, either. Tracks with road courses make some money off
club events, and more Speedway Motorsports tracks now have smaller, dirt ovals
to help the budget. But somebody has got to figure out how to run smaller
events on these big tracks, make a few bucks, and offer the fans additional
sports entertainment.
Frank’s
Loose Lug Nuts
Spent
the weekend of July 12-13 with the Pennsylvania Sprint Series, which was racing
at two of its smaller venues, the 1/3-mile Trail-Way Speedway in Hanover, Pa.,
and the quarter-mile Path Valley Speedway in Spring Run, about 90 minutes
farther west.
Both
nights featured good racing, both for the PASS/IMCA RaceSaver 305 sprints and
for the other divisions. Both tracks had nice crowds, too.
At
Path Valley, the crowd was better than nice; it apparently was by far the
largest of the year. On Kids/Autograph Night, the drivers and teams of the
Wingless Super Sportsman division combined to bring nearly 75 bicycles and
scooters to be given away, along with countless other prizes, including two of
$100 cash. Cars were brought out on the track – covering more than half the
quarter mile – and fans went to meet their heroes, get autographs, and make
memories that should bring a lot of these kids back as grown-ups.
Kids/Autograph
Night at Path Valley
The
future of our sport depends on this kind of stuff happening a lot. Everybody at
Path Valley did a great job; I know a number of other tracks do this already,
and the rest – including those on NASCAR’s traveling circuits – should get on
board.