LONG POND — Turn 2 at Pocono Raceway, a.k.a. the Tunnel Turn, was already one of the trickiest on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit.
But Friday, it threw a curveball at the drivers.
During practice for the Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400, there were a number of complaints and concerns about a huge bump in the middle of Turn 2.
One driver, though, wouldn’t classify it as a bump.
“It’s a big, big jump,” Joey Logano said. “The front tires are completely off the race track.”
In the offseason, Pocono did some cosmetic work to the tunnel, which provides access into and out of the track’s infield. But track president and CEO Brandon Igdalsky said the renovations had nothing to do with the bumps. Rather, it was the harsh winter that impacted the problem.
“We had some bumps through there last year and they’ve just gotten more severe,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “First time I went through there, I had no idea it was back there. Luckily, I didn’t go through there with a whole lot of confidence in the first place for speed because that was wild.”
Having some bumps isn’t bad and give a race track character, Earnhardt said. But the one in Turn 2 at Pocono is getting dangerously close to the line between character and a bad track.
“I definitely like a bump or two in the corner,” Earnhardt said. “I love that stuff. You like your tracks to have character. But that’s just a little bit extreme right now.”
Earnhardt said Igdalsky told him the track will rectify the problem in time for when the series returns in August. In the meantime, drivers will have to deal with it this weekend.
“We can work on the car and do things to make the ride quality better,” Earnhardt said. “But there’s only so much we can do. It’s just very severe bumps.”
Logano is concerned about his car making it through the entire race. He said these cars are built to stay on the ground, not jump up and down.
“When your front tires come off the ground and they land and they’re moving, that just stresses all these parts and pieces out,” Logano said. “We have everything built to the max of what our cars typically do, and this is a little bit more. So will cars break? Possibly. I guess we don’t know.”
Jeff Gordon said that if you have two cars go through there side by side, it could make for some interesting moments.
“When you have a challenge like a bump right in the crucial part of a corner — right in the center part of the corner when you’re getting back to the throttle — you want as much room around you for the car to hop and bump and be forgiving in that area,” Gordon said.
“If somebody’s pinning you down and they’re on the outside of you, you hit that bump wrong or miss the height a little bit on the splitter, the car could jump out from underneath you pretty easily.”
Conversely, Gordon said the bumps might actually make Sunday’s race a bit more exciting. It adds a unique challenge that the teams were not expecting.
Carl Edwards agrees.
“As long as it’s not breaking parts, I believe it gives us an opportunity to set up passes,” Edwards said. “It could be one of those things where you can take advantage of a guy who has trouble going through there. I say that I’ll probably have the worse trouble. But to me it’s OK to have that character. They may be on the big side, but that’s OK.”