With three wins atop the pit box at Pocono Raceway, Steve Letarte knows quite a bit about finding success at the “Tricky Triangle.”
Letarte won at the 2.5-mile track in June 2007 as the crew chief for recently named Class of 2019 NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon. In 2014, his final year atop the pit box before becoming part of the NASCAR on NBC broadcast booth, he guided Dale Earnhardt Jr. to a sweep of both races at the Pennsylvania track.
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The track is the lone venue on the circuit with just three turns instead of the traditional four found at most oval tracks that make up the majority of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule. That uniqueness is a challenge for drivers and crew chiefs alike for Sunday’s Pocono 400 (2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“It takes a mindset,” Letarte told NASCAR.com. “If you don’t have track position, there’s not much you can do as far driving through the field. I think you just have to like going there — driver and crew chief.
“It just comes into a very honest compromise. What you have for a car. Which corner you are good in. Which corner are you are not good in. You have to have a very methodical approach because if you think you are going to be very good in all three (corners), you’re wrong.
“Then, it’s just a ton of hours studying all the options that can come your way. The track layout, specifically the length of the lap, just opens up so many opportunities for strategy — when to pit, how to pit. It’s just a challenging race track atop the pit box and in the driver’s seat.”
Pocono has seen 12 different winners in the past 13 races there with Earnhardt’s 2014 sweep standing as the only instance of a driver winning more than once in that stretch. Letarte is one of two crew chiefs to win multiple races at Pocono in that span – Jason Ratcliff is the other, although he did it with two drivers, Joey Logano (in 2012) and Matt Kenseth (in 2015).
Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick have combined for nine wins in the first 13 Monster Energy Series races of 2018 but have just one win combined at Pocono (Harvick has not won there). And while their early dominance has been a prominent storyline so far, the playoff picture is also coming more into focus with half the regular season complete. Letarte expects that to play into the strategic mindset, especially for teams currently on the wrong side of the 16-driver cutline.
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“You look at the second half of the playoff standings,” Letarte said. “You look at teams like Paul Menard (Wood Brothers Racing, No. 21 Ford). Someone who won at Indy on fuel mileage. Ryan Newman (Richard Childress Racing, No. 31 Chevrolet). He’s been so consistent for so many years. How much are they willing to throw away points to get that win?”
With the stages of the Pocono 400 set to be 50 laps, 50 laps and 60 laps, teams will have to pit at least once in each stage since a fuel run at Pocono is around 33-35 laps. Last year’s July race saw stage-winning machine Martin Truex Jr. bypass a stage win to pit from the lead with four laps to go in Stage 2 in order to better position himself to go after the race win by only needing one more pit stop the rest of the way. Kyle Busch went on to win the race, while Truex finished third.
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“Aggressive is the new norm,” Letarte said. “Splitting a fuel run up in the middle used to be, ‘Man, you are way outside the box.’ Now, if you don’t split it, you are way outside the box.
“I expect most guys to pit as soon as they get in their window. The aggressive strategy is to perhaps run really long and try to have the freshest tires at the end and put your driver on offense. If the cautions fall right — Dale Jr. and I did it (in their August 2014 win). We pitted and took fuel and tires just so we could come back a few laps later to take fuel again. …
“A win fixes everything, so I do think there will be some creative strategies.”