Pocono Raceway, besides being the first venture of the Cup Series to the populous Northeast region, is usually the first time all season that crew chiefs will have this choice to make: which corner do they want to sacrifice to be good in the other two?

Pocono's unique layout -- triangular in shape with long straightaways and three distinctly different corners -- has been challenging NASCAR's top teams for 40 years now, and there are many ways to attack it. Some work, some don't, and some will work once and never again.

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Aero used to be it was pretty big, but now everybody's the same. There's no advantage. You can't do anything aero-wise to help yourself more than anybody else can. The big thing is keeping yourself up in the top three or four for clean air.

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PAT TRYSON

In the middle of all that, the track underwent some repaving, especially off Turn 3, and that's going to change the line onto the airstrip that is the front straight at Pocono. At least that's what Pat Tryson, crew chief for Kurt Busch's No. 2 Dodge, thinks following last week's test there.

"We just learned that it is still a unique racetrack and you have to do things different there than you do at other places," Tryson said. "You have to decide whether you want to be better in Turn 1 or Turn 2 or Turn 3, and you can be better in Turn 2 and 3 if you sacrifice Turn 1 a little bit. If you're good in 1, then you're not as good in 2 and 3, so it's a trade-off."

Turn 3 has been the most important corner for years, because it leads onto the 3,740-foot front straight, and that's where teams have focused their efforts.

"Turn 3 is real important because the straightaway is really long, but there are long straightaways everywhere," Tryson said. He's right: the Long Pond straight from the banked Turn 1 to Turn 2 is a whopping 3,055 feet. The "short" straight is only 1,780 feet.

"Every corner is important, but you have to decide which one is going to help you run the best," Tryson added.

The new pavement, on the high side of Turn 3, is what's going to change things, Tryson said. "It's going to make a difference. There's a lot of grip up on the new pavement, and you'll see guys not run the bottom off Turn 3 like they normally do."

Those long straightaways can take a toll on the engine and transmission, but Tryson has been playing that game for a long time.

"That's our motor shop," he said. "They take care of that. Obviously, you tune as much as you can for fuel mileage, but you don't want to put yourself at risk for blowing up. I think they'll be somewhat conservative to make sure that we don't lean it out too much at the end of those long straights."

Fuel mileage plays a role as well, because if you're short and you run it one lap beyond your window, it's a long way back to the pits.

"Pocono can be a fuel mileage track, and it probably will be this year," Tryson said. "The one thing that's unique about Pocono is, if you run pretty good, you can pit without losing a lap. It's not quite as important unless it's the last run. It can happen, but it usually doesn't there."

Long straightaways mean high-end speed, and getting into the corners at top speed can be a pain. That means that brakes are more important at Pocono than you might imagine. With the new car, it's even more difficult, Tryson said.

"In the past it's been pretty hard on [brakes], and it will be harder with the [new car], but I think everybody goes into this with the mindset that you have to leave some air on the brakes," he said. "In the past we did it with fans behind the nose, but you can't do that anymore, so it might be a little easier because we'll all have air on the brakes."

For a track that sits on what used to be an asparagus farm, there's a fair amount of weather. Pocono is in the mountains, so it goes through a pretty drastic weather change from morning to afternoon. What plays most on Tryson's mind is heat.

"Yeah, it's slow when the sun's out, and it's slicker," he said. "When it's cloudy and cool in the morning, it's quicker, but when we go back, it'll be hotter and slicker, so we'll just have to find some more grip."

As with all races featuring the new car, track position is the most important aspect of running well. Aerodynamics dictates that the cars with clean air run faster, and the strategy is wholly dependent on what keeps the car at the front.

"You can get fairly creative, strategy-wise, because track position is important and you can pit under green and not lose a lap," Tryson said. "Sometimes you can take a little different strategy to keep yourself up front. Staying up front is going to be real important.

"Aero used to be it was pretty big, but now everybody's the same. There's no advantage. You can't do anything aero-wise to help yourself more than anybody else can. The big thing is keeping yourself up in the top three or four for clean air."