Pocono's 'fun track' noted for straightaways

Sunday's race at Pocono International Raceway will mark Ricky Rudd's 781st Winston Cup race and his 694th consecutive Cup start. Rudd has 47 starts at the Pennsylvania track with one victory (June 2001), nine top-fives and 21 top-10s.

Pocono is a good race track. I've been able to win there and we've had good runs there; a lot of top-five finishes. So for me, Pocono has always been a fun track. I know a lot of drivers don't look forward to it, but to me it drives like a road course with all left-hand corners.

	Ricky Rudd

You come out of pit road in Turn 1 and get wound up to go down the backstretch that goes on forever. You are in third gear at that point. You are approaching the Tunnel Turn (No. 2). There are braking markers there, and you want to be able to drive pretty deep down into that turn. You want to drive in deep and keep the momentum going. You never actually get out of the throttle. You go back to about quarter throttle and then immediately wide open again.

At the exit of the Tunnel Turn, you drive right out against the wall. You keep the revs up and the momentum going. That's the trick at Pocono, just as it is at a lot of tracks, but it really makes a difference at Pocono. You exit the turn with a lot of momentum. That will either win or lose the pole for you if you can do that correctly.

Then you are coming in to Turn 3. I tend to start to turn into the corner and then I get out of the gas, very lightweight pressure. You drive it down with the left front tire almost down to the grass and then back into the throttle to keeping the momentum going through the corner so the car can't just slip and slide around through that corner. You kind of dirt track it through that corner.

The key is to try to enter the front straight with as much speed and with as little RPM drop as you possibly can have when you enter the front straightaway. Before you get to the start/finish line, usually you shift from third to fourth. It seems like the straightaway goes forever and you can get up to well over 200 mph before you get to Turn 1.

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When you are driving it down into the turn, you use medium brake pressure. At the same time you're braking, you are shifting into third gear. You run right at the bottom of the race track. There is a big bump in the middle of Turn 1 and 2. This bump tends to throw the car up in the air. It feels like all four tires leave the ground momentarily, and then right back down on the track again. It is very rough down there.

But again, you make sure your car is not too tight or too loose to keep that momentum going as you enter the backstretch.

For years Pocono was taken as a compromise race track where there are three corners that are distinctly different from one another. Turn 1, to me, has always sort of taken care of itself. There's not a lot of speed made or lost in this turn. So I've tended to work on the Tunnel Turn and Turn 3 as you enter the front straightaway.

I found that if you are handling right in the Tunnel Turn that you usually are going to be pretty good in Turn 3 coming into the front straightaway.

The make-it or break-it corner for many years was Turn 3, entering the front straightaway with as much speed as you possibly could. That probably somewhat applies today, but now you can't give up the Tunnel Turn. So I guess if you have to compromise, you would like to be able to think that you would be good in the Tunnel Turn and good in Turn 3. And if you have to throw away Turn 1, you just do that.

Turn 1 has got more banking than the rest of the corners. I've never had a car there, even when we won, that was perfect in all three corners.

Ricky Rudd drives the No. 21 Motorcraft Racing Ford Taurus owned by Wood Brothers Racing.