NASCAR drivers were greeted Friday by a challenging new wrinkle to an already treacherous turn at Pocono Raceway. A wrinkle, a bump “ or even a motorcycle jump, depending on whom you ask. The 2.5-mile speedway’s second corner “ otherwise known as the “tunnel turn” for the location of the track’s infield entry lanes “ provided rough terrain during opening Sprint Cup Series practice, spawning mixed reviews from drivers and a promise from track president Brandon Igdalsky to find a remedy before the circuit returns Aug. 2. “Those bumps have been there since we did the repave,” Igdalsky told reporters Friday afternoon. “The first year, they weren’t there. The second year, they were there. Last year, they were a little bigger. It’s just been gradual, and the winter this year “ these guys will tell you, living in Pennsylvania, the roads this year just got disintegrated. Everything just got beat up so bad because it was so cold. And it’s basically two back-to-back years of awful winters, and they’re taking their toll. A road is not any different than a race track at the end of the day. When the ground gets frozen, it does bad, bad things.” Because NASCAR returns to Pocono for opening-day practice July 31, the turnaround time for a track renovation project is tight but doable, Igdalsky said. After the visit by the Sprint Cup and Camping World Truck Series, Indy cars race here three weeks later. “We’re going to try to get something done before the next race,” Igdalsky said. “If it’s as bad for these guys, it’s going to be worse for the Indy cars. So we’ve got to look at them, too. Those races being so close, we’re not going to have time between those two races to get it done. We have a really busy track schedule. We’ve got cars out there just about every day, so it’s just a matter of finding enough days to do something, get the track cleared, do something and then make it work.”(NASCAR.com)(6-6-2015)
