The last time the Sprint Cup Series invaded Pocono Raceway, Brian Vickers came half a fuel run from scoring his first victory for Team Red Bull.

Crew chief Kevin Hamlin called that race and watched as Vickers lost out to fresher tires at the end. With the return trip to the 2.5-mile triangle this weekend, Hamlin said it likely was going to be the same kind of race.

“

At Pocono, it's three different corners and the track is so rough you have to find where your car wants to run. That might not be where someone else wants to run.

”

KEVIN HAMLIN

"Track position is so important there, because clean air seems to be very important with this car at a lot of places, but at the bigger places like Pocono it's even more important," Hamlin said. "We kind of had to play a different strategy to get where we got [in June]. That left us with tires that were not quite as fresh as what Kasey [Kahne] ended up with. In the end that kind of hurt us, but it still enabled us to have a good finish."

Vickers lost the lead to Kahne with 15 laps remaining, and couldn't catch the eventual winner on 10-lap-older tires. A victory would have been huge for the team, Hamlin said.

"It would mean a lot, any race, whether it was Pocono or anywhere, it would be pretty big."

Hamlin said that strategy could be refined, and while he didn't give up all of his strategy secrets, he did say that the options open to him on the pit box were almost limitless.

"There were some people who took no tires last time, but it depends on how many laps you run and how much you want to gamble on fuel," Hamlin said. "You can pit and just get fuel, we saw that, too. You get yourself some good track position and you can pit under green and not lose a lap, too."

As for tires, Hamlin was confident that there wouldn't be a repeat of the Indianapolis debacle.

"They had a good tire for Pocono the first race, and we're taking the same tire back, so I don't think we'll see any problem with that," he said.

While the triangular-shaped track presents a unique challenge to drivers and crews, the stress on the engine and tuners isn't near what it used to be even though the race is still 500 miles.

"It's a long race," Hamlin sighed. "It seems like that race just takes forever. Maybe not as long as Indy ... what a mess that was. It's different than when I first started going there because we don't shift gears anymore. The way they have us locked down on gear ratios, transmission ratios, makes it a little harder. You can blow your stuff up pretty easy if you mess up. (Continued)