By Roy J. Akers — www.skyviewsports.net
With teams rolling into Pocono Raceway, here is the team news. With Denny Hamlin on a two race winning streak and the defending champion, he is the favorite for the race.
| STEADY IN THE STANDINGSA strong day in “Motor City” saw the NASCAR Cup Series reigning champion, Kyle Larson, and the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team earn its fifth top-five finish of the season. The effort culminated with a strong points day, including a pair of top-seven results in each stage to maintain his sixth position in the rankings heading into the Pocono race weekend. While he’s still looking to post his first Pocono triumph, the “Tricky Triangle” has turned into a rather strong track, statistically, for the California native. In 18 career Cup Series starts at the track, Larson has produced an average finish of 11.5 – enough to rank him fourth-best in the field. He’s also accumulated 10 top-10 finishes, five of which have come in his past seven appearances at the track. |
 HOCEVAR CONTINUING TO COLLECT CAREER STATSCompeting in just his third full-time campaign in NASCAR’s premier series, Carson Hocevar is continuing to build upon an already career season. A visit to his home track of Michigan International Speedway saw the Spire Motorsports driver start the weekend by earning his second front-row qualifying effort of the season. The Portage, Michigan, native went on to tally top-seven points in each stage and 21 laps led en route to a top-five finish. Putting together a 45-point day, second just behind the race winner, Hocevar made yet another two-position gain in the points standings to seventh and just one point shy of a triple-digit cushion over the cutline. Hocevar has scored four top-five finishes thus far this season, already surpassing his career total during the 15-race stretch. |
 TARGETING TWENTY TRIUMPHSAmong the 26 different organizations that have earned a NASCAR Cup Series victory at Pocono Raceway, Hendrick Motorsports leads the way with 19 all-time victories – all of which have been recorded under the Chevrolet banner. NASCAR Hall of Famer, Jeff Gordon, contributed to six of those triumphs – a feat that also places him second on the series’ all-time wins list at the track. Hendrick Motorsports’ two most recent trips to victory lane at the track came with a pair of its current drivers including Alex Bowman in 2021, with Chase Elliott following suit the next year in the debut season of the Next Gen car (2022). |
 PAST POCONO WINNERS The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has a much shorter history at the “Tricky Triangle”, with the track first welcoming the second-level series 10 years ago – an event that saw now two-time Cup Series champion, Kyle Larson, drive Chevrolet to the inaugural race win. The Bowtie brand has visited victory lane four times throughout that tenure, including the most recent event in June 2025 when Connor Zilisch, under the leadership of interim crew chief and car owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., drove to his first career oval victory in the NASCAR national ranks. |
  BERRY TO MAKE 100TH CUP STARTWood Brothers Racing driver Josh Berry will be making his 100th career NASCAR Cup Series start this weekend when the circuit makes its annual stop at Pocono Raceway. Berry’s most memorable moment to this point was his first victory with the team last year in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That made him the 20th driver to win at least one series race for the organization and guaranteed his spot in the postseason for the first time .  FIRST-TIME CUP WINNERS There are currently four Ford Racing NASCAR Cup drivers still looking for their first series victory (Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith, Noah Gragson, Ryan Preece). Pocono Raceway is a place where that has happened on a few occasions, most recently in 2017 when Ryan Blaney scored his first victory while driving for the Wood Brothers. Jeremy Mayfield (1998), Denny Hamlin (2006) and Chris Buescher (2016) are the other three who also made the “Tricky Triangle” the place for their first trip to Victory Lane .  SITTING ON 749The next Ford win will be its 750th all-time in NASCAR’s top series. Ned Jarrett is Ford’s win leader with 43 while Bill Elliott is second with 40. Shirtless Jimmy Florian scored the Blue Oval’s first series victory when he upset the likes of Lee Petty, Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly at Dayton Speedway on June 25, 1950. Florian earned his nickname after getting out of his 1950 flathead Ford without a shirt. Overall, 91 drivers have won at least one series race with Ford, including notable drivers Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Dale Earnhardt.   QUESTION: WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT YOUR FIRST WIN AT POCONO? CHRIS BUESCHER: “Lots of things that were very positive, and then on the negative side of it, I’ll just start with that because when we did get the final OK, that’s it, we’re calling it, it was almost an hour-and-a-half later. I think all the pit boxes on pit road were shut down and sealed up. People were gone. Haulers were missing. It was pretty clear that we were done and we hung out for a long time. The negative side to that is at the end of it, there was nobody to celebrate with. I think there were eight people, mainly our team standing on pit road, and the grandstands were empty. Pit road was empty. The garage was all but empty. We couldn’t use the really neat Victory Lane at Pocono that has since been replaced, so we had to go do an alternate one in the garage. There was no celebration on the frontstretch. No burnout to it. It took away some of the most fun parts about winning races in just that raw emotion in the moment. That being said, it was huge for us. I remember how the day went. We had an accident that we narrowly avoided, but I think we touched fenders with somebody and with a metal body car it ended up cutting a tire down. So, we ended up on pit road off sequence, which set us up to be able to run longer on that fuel run. That put us in a spot to where as cars started pitting, the rain was far enough out, but the fog is unpredictable in Pocono. I had an ARCA win narrowly slip away due to fog at Pocono, ironically. I’ll still trade it for that Cup win at the end of the day, so I’m OK with it now, but it let us stay out there just long enough. Jamie McMurray was ahead of us and when he pitted and then I think it was the next straightaway they came over the radio and they’re like, ‘Hey, the visibility is getting pretty bad up here. How is it from your standpoint going down the backstretch?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s fine.’ And as soon as I let the words come out of my mouth, I realized, ‘Well, that was the wrong answer. I know what they were fishing for.’ They were very quick to ask me again the next straightaway and I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s really bad. I can’t see a thing. I’m sure you can’t see me either. This feels unsafe.’ I was a little bit of a slow learner back then, but it was a really big moment for us and everybody at Front Row Motorsports. To be able to put ourselves in the playoffs that season was huge in our rookie year, so I definitely have a lot of things that come back to me from that race and it was certainly a fun one. It was unfortunate not to get to celebrate the proper way because wins in this sport are so hard to come by no matter how they arrive and you certainly want to have that ability to celebrate with all the people who work so hard to create those moments and it didn’t quite feel the same as any of the wins since.” |
TOYOTA RACING Revs Up San Diego With “The Garage” — a Free Kickoff Event Celebrating Local Culture and Motorsports
Event Merges NASCAR, Local Culture and Interactive Experiences at San Diego’s Waterfront Park on June 13
PLANO, Texas (June 10, 2026) – While the highly-anticipated NASCAR Cup Series race at Naval Base Coronado is quickly approaching, TOYOTA RACING is starting the race week early, meshing motorsports with San Diego’s local culture one week ahead of NASCAR’s in town debut.
“The Garage,” a free kick-off celebration ahead of the NASCAR race weekend, will blend high-speed racing experiences with local music, art and community partnerships. The all-day event runs this Saturday, June 13, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT at Waterfront Park.
The activation features countless elements the community will enjoy, including interactive racing simulators and exclusive vehicle displays. Fans can test their skills at a NASCAR 25 Game Pod, compete in sports-themed games courtesy of the San Diego Padres and San Diego FC (SDFC), and collect limited-edition merchandise from a collaboration between Toyota and local skate shop, Arts-Rec (while supplies last).
Team Toyota athlete and Encinitas native Jordyn Barratt will headline a live skate demonstration on a mini halfpipe in conjunction with Arts-Rec, 23XI Racing (co-owned by Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin), and TOYOTA RACING. Barratt will also be conducting a pit box interview session and autograph session at the Outfitters merchandise hauler on-site. A San-Diego based muralist will create a live art installation during the event, blending inspiration from TOYOTA RACING and elements of the city’s culture and identity. Music and other live entertainment will be provided by Padres resident DJ Beto Perez, premium giveaways, local enthusiast vehicles provided by the local Toyota Dealers, TOYOTA RACING merchandise for sale and food for purchase from several food trucks on-site are just a few of the many things to see and do.
“The Garage brings racing closer to fans by celebrating what makes San Diego unique,” said Paul Doleshal, general manager, motorsports and sponsorships, Toyota Motor North America. “From locally inspired art and music, to community partnerships with the Padres and SDFC (San Diego Football Club), this experience connects racing culture with the vibrant local community.”
