Carl Edwards won in his very first try at Pocono Credit: Autostock

Money in the bank? Not when it comes to Pocono

Odd-shaped tri-oval compounds problems, makes things interesting

Forget six degrees of separation. That's just in Turn 3 alone.

Pocono Raceway, and its unique 2.5-mile tri-oval, offers a myriad of challenges as the Nextel Cup circuit hits the Pennsylvania mountains for the Pocono 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, Sunday, FOX).

Pocono Raceway Driver Rating Pos. Driver High Average 1. B. Vickers 142.1 122.5 2. M. Martin 123.7 118.0 3. C. Edwards 129 114.8 4. Ku. Busch 150 110.0 5. K. Harvick 113.2 103.2 6. R. Newman 113.8 98.9 7. M. Waltrip 114.6 96.4 8. J. McMurray 97.5 96.3 9. J. Nemechek 96.1 95.3 10. G. Biffle 95 90.3 Average Running Position Pos. Driver Average 1. B. Vickers 4.723 2. M. Martin 5.094 3. R. Newman 8.824 4. Ku. Busch 9.564 5. C. Edwards 9.908 6. J. McMurray 10.493 7. M. Waltrip 11.168 8. J. Nemechek 11.752 9. K. Harvick 12.339 10. G. Biffle 13.646 Fastest Drivers in Turn 1 Pos. Driver Avg. Speed 1. M. Martin 146.999 2. B. Vickers 146.399 3. C. Edwards 146.394 4. G. Biffle 146.154 5. R. Newman 145.811 6. Ku. Busch 145.745 7. K. Harvick 145.525 8. M. Waltrip 145.482 9. J. McMurray 145.355 10. J. Johnson 145.045 Fastest Drivers in Turn 2 Pos. Driver Avg. Speed 1. M. Martin 151.666 2. M. Waltrip 150.919 3. B. Vickers 150.825 4. C. Edwards 150.692 5. G. Biffle 150.616 6. J. McMurray 150.101 7. R. Newman 150.089 8. Ku. Busch 150.074 9. K. Harvick 149.623 10. J. Mayfield 149.579 Fastest Drivers in Turn 3 Pos. Driver Avg. Speed 1. T. Labonte 142.951 2. M. Martin 141.223 3. K. Harvick 141.041 4. Ku. Busch 140.666 5. B. Vickers 140.665 6. C. Edwards 140.495 7. Ky. Busch 140.329 8. G. Biffle 140.038 9. M. Waltrip 140.001 10. R. Newman 139.937 • Stats based on last year's races at Pocono; current drivers only

The banking is different at all three turns: Turn 1 has 14 degrees of banking, Turn 2, also known as the Tunnel Turn, has eight degrees and Turn 3 has six. Therefore, it is difficult to pinpoint the car's setup for all three turns and the teams that come closest have the best chance to win.

"There are too many different kinds of corners to have any unique setup," Kevin Harvick said. "It's more of finding a happy medium. There are a lot of bumps in Turn 1 that you have to get through. Then, the Tunnel Turn is flat and fast. The last corner is pretty flat and the exit opens up and the car rolls over a lot. Turn 1 has a little more banking than the other two corners. The other two are pretty flat. You just hope you find a common ground and make it all work."

Tony Stewart, who completed just 38 laps last week at Dover, plans on navigating his car through all 600 corners in the 200-lap event.

"It seems like you can always get your car good in two of the three corners, but the guys who are contending for the win are the guys who can get their car good for all three corners," Stewart said.

"That's a very hard thing to do -- get you car good through all three sections of the racetrack. If there's a guy who can get all three of those corners right, then that's the guy who's going to win the race."

While some teams will try and master one of the turns and hope for the best with the others, Stewart has a different approach.

"We always go out and figure where I feel like I'm struggling the most, because that's where I feel like I'm going to make up the most time," said Stewart, who has fallen from second to fifth in points in the past two weeks. "The Tunnel Turn seems to be our toughest turn on the racetrack. Getting through Turn 2 and the last corner of the racetrack that's flat, long and sweeping -- those seem to be the toughest two corners to get through."

Each corner leads into a long straightaway, which allows drivers to throttle down but also puts a lot of pressure on the engine.

"It's a little different now because we don't go through transmission and gear changes like we have in the past where we tried different combinations to find more speed," Stewart said. "With the gears NASCAR says you can run, it's made it a totally different style of racing compared to what we've had in year's past at Pocono. It's evened things out for everyone."

That's good news for the likes of Matt Kenseth and Jeff Burton, who have struggled at Pocono, and Mark Martin, who is winless in 38 career starts there but has 19 top-fives and 27 top-10s.

FedEx PreviewNBC/TNT's Marty Snider previews the action at Pocono Pocono PreviewBenny Parsons, CNN preview the action at Pocono Garage PassCarl Edwards stunned everyone last year at Pocono Garage PassTony Stewart says he will tough it out at Pocono Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

"Pocono is one of my favorite racetracks. It's really hard to believe that we've never won there, but we've run really well and we've finished second a whole bunch of times," said Martin, who has six runner-up finishes. "We've had some really good cars there over the years and we've been really fast the last several times that we've raced there. Hopefully we'll be able to build on that and finally get over that hump and get our first win at a track that I really love to go race at."

Burton hopes the equipment upgrade that has propelled him to seventh in points takes hold at the physically and mentally demanding Pocono.

"I think our cars are much better and our engines are much better," said Burton, who has six top-fives and 11 top-10s in 24 starts at Pocono. "The fun thing about Pocono and the difficult thing is that everything is different. You have to be good in every corner; you can't sacrifice anything anywhere."

Kenseth has only two top-fives and five top-10s in 12 Pocono starts. Those numbers aren't lost on the No. 17 team.

"Pocono creates a lot of different challenges for your team as far as race setup. I think that's why you see teams bring so many different type cars here, crew chief Robbie Reiser said. "Some bring short-track cars, some bring speedway cars; we're bringing a brand new car that we sort of built with this place in mind. It's never tested other than a little wind tunnel time, so we're anxious to see how it's going to work out."

Inside the Numbers Kenseth '05 vs. Kurt Busch '06 (through 14 races)   Kenseth   Busch   No. Finish Pts Finish Pts 1. 42 42 38 38 2. 26 36 16 25 3. 8 28 16 22 4. 31 31 37 27 5. 16 28 1 16 6. 11 21 11 14 7. 18 21 34 17 8. 42 28 24 17 9. 11 23 7 16 10. 26 24 29 18 11. 12 21 19 18 12. 37 23 39 19 13. 7 22 16 18 14. 32 24 ? ?

Kenseth finished 32nd last June at Pocono. He was 24th in points after that race and 320 points out of 10th place. Yet he rallied to make the Chase.

All of which gives former teammate Kurt Busch encouragement. Busch won the July race at Pocono and needs to start putting together top runs if he is to make the Chase for the third consecutive year.

"We'll never give up and it's really way too early to discount the top 20 or so guys," said Busch, who is 18th in points, 304 back of 400. "We have 13 races left to work our way back into the top 10. We'll have to work hard and start getting top fives and top 10s, but we've got some good tracks coming up. It'll be a challenge, but it'll be fun trying."

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"What they [the No. 17 team] did last year was pretty incredible, but they proved that it could be done. If you look at all the statistics, we're nowhere near the bad shape those guys were in at this point last season."

Busch, the only driver to lead more than one lap in both races at Pocono last year, has four top-fives in his past seven starts there.

"Pocono is a great place for us to rise to the occasion because it's been a really good track for us," Busch said. "We've had a lot of good fortune there over the years and the Penske teams have historically been strong there. We're hoping for big things this weekend at Pocono."