HighPoint.com 400 at Pocono Raceway
(⏰ Sunday, 2:30 p.m. ET | 📺 USA, NBC Sports App | 📻 MRN, SiriusXM)
Everything you need to know for Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race in Pennsylvania, the 21st points-paying race of the 2023 Cup Series campaign.
Weekend schedule | TV schedule | Weather tracker | Pocono 101
📍 Location: Long Pond, Pennsylvania 📐 Track length: 2.5 miles 🎟️ Buy tickets: Find weekend passes, seats for the race 💰 Cup Series race purse: $7,243,361 📏 Race distance: 400 miles | 160 laps 🔢 Stages: 30 | 95 | 160 -- 🚪 Entry list: Cup Series drivers entered 📋 Starting lineup: William Byron races to P1 🚗 Pit stall assignments: Where drivers will pit on Sunday 🏆 Most recent winner: Chase Elliott, 2022 Key things to watch 🔑 Saturday's sessions William Byron concluded another qualifying session with an additional Busch Light Pole Award to his mantle, with the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports driver claiming his third of the season and his 11th overall in the NASCAR Cup Series. Martin Truex Jr. will start on the front row with Byron, while HMS teammate Kyle Larson will lead the second row in conjunction with Kyle Harvick. Christopher Bell rounded out the top five. | Read the full practice, qualifying recap Big story line When will they win? Shockingly, 11 of the 19 race winners from the 2022 season have yet to reach Victory Lane -- including Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman. If either fails to make the playoffs this season, it will be the first time since 2016 that Hendrick Motorsports failed to put three or more cars into championship contention. As the dust starts to settle and the regular season rapidly winds down, it is clear that drivers at the top of the standings are separating themselves from the rest of the field. Three drivers — William Byron (4), Martin Truex Jr. (3) and Kyle Busch (3) — combine for half of the trips to the Winner's Circle this season. Eight other drivers have just one win. And with only five races remaining before the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway, time is running out for the others to join them. | Complete look at the current playoff picture History tells us... Denny Hamlin will be a contender. Hamlin has six victories at the Pennsylvania triangle, including two in the last six races. He has also led laps in 10 of his last 11 trips to Pocono, an astounding feat. He simply knows how this place works. Continuing off momentum from the seventh-place finish at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, he could very well be the next driver this season to hang a crooked number in the win column. Where he has struggled lately is stringing together consistent finishes, but he should be confident and comfortable this weekend. After all, he is tied with Jeff Gordon for the most wins at the track, and he is likely eyeing being the lone holder of the record. | Power Rankings: Why Sunday could see Hamlin climb the charts He may not be the betting favorite to win, but watch out for... Bubba Wallace. Wallace is right near the elimination line, fighting for a berth in the Cup Series Playoffs. As the summer months wane, he and the No. 23 Toyota team have picked up the pace, earning back-to-back top-10 finishes after a string of eight finishes of 14th or worse. To have made it through that sort of a slump and still contending for a Round of 16 spot has to be sort of a relief for Wallace and company. But there is still a lot of work left to do. Wallace opens at a respectable 28-1 opening odds on DraftKings, meaning that people have obviously seen potential in him to shake up the race. He's not a long shot, but he's not among the favorites, either. Based on a solid run and eighth-place finish in 2022, preceded by a fifth-place effort in 2021, he could be an interesting pick to win. | Bubble Watch: Full look at the elimination-line battle