I dreamed that one day, Pocono would be removed from the NASCAR schedule. The track would end up like one of those abandoned honeymoon resorts nearby, weeds and bushes overtaking it as the buildings crumbled.
Matthew OHaren, Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports
Sprint Cup Series drivers race down the front straightaway at Pocono Raceway in August 2015.
Pocono was easy to hate. It had a pair of boring 500-mile races held on a triangular track far from anything. It always seemed to rain. The track’s facilities appeared like they might have already been outdated by the time they were built.
But my opinion, like many others in the NASCAR garage, has changed — and I didn’t even realize it.
On Friday, I ran into Pocono track president/CEO Brandon Igdalsky, the grandson of the track’s late founder, Dr. Joseph Mattioli. Igdalsky thanked me for saying something nice about the track recently during a Sirius/XM Radio interview.
Me? Saying something nice about Pocono? I was caught off guard. What did I even say?
The best I can recall, it was something about how the quirky track has continued to make improvements every year to enhance the fan experience and has put on some much more entertaining races in recent seasons.
I suppose that counts as nice to Igdalsky’s ears after years of criticism. But thinking about it more, there actually are a lot of Pocono positives since Igdalsky took over.
From shortening the races to 400 miles each, repaving the track, renovating the track’s old-school entrance (it now has rocks and waterfalls!), updating the 1970s-era signage and, most recently, opening a dog park for campers’ pets, the family-run track has continued to make improvements. The track even has a solar farm across the street from the raceway.
This year, Pocono added more SAFER barriers and extended the wall near the entrance to pit road.
“Brandon and his guys are racers and they put a lot into this place,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Friday. “You would think that he is here every single day and this is all he does, (thinking) ‘How can I make racing and the experience for the fans better at this racetrack?’
“He is always upgrading. It seems like whatever they get out of this place, they put it right back in.”
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