Pocono Raceway has two relatively high-profile promotions going on for this weekend’s NASCAR national series action, and track President & CEO Brandon Igdalsky said both are working as planned. After all three of its most important annual races (two NASCAR Cup races, one IndyCar race) were postponed by rain last year, the independently owned Pocono late last year announced a “Worry-Free Weather Guarantee” plan for this year where fans will be reimbursed if the Sunday raceday is postponed. Pocono is currently showing a forecast of a mostly sunny weekend with rain called for in the middle of the week. Igdalsky said, “Fans have been pretty receptive to it. We’ve had a lot of fans who have said, ‘I’m going to go ahead and get the ticket because I don’t have to worry about it anymore,’ so I definitely think it helped. Luckily, we have a good forecast for this weekend so we don’t really have to worry about it, but I think where you’d really see it come into play is if there’s an iffy forecast.” Pocono also is the first track to run a promo with first-year Cup Series title sponsor Monster Energy whereby any fan who brings a can of a Monster beverage to the track on Friday to recycle will get free admission for that day's festivities, which include Cup Series qualifying and an ARCA race. NASCAR and Monster have 500 point of sale displays touting the promotion in New York and Pennsylvania, and Monster has said it has seen more than 1 million cans donated over the course of a couple years doing the same promotion with another series it sponsors, Feld Entertainment’s Monster Energy Supercross. Igdalsky: “It’s good for them to get the word out, it’s good for us to get that promotion and at the same time I think it really backs up the sustainability efforts we’re doing here at Pocono Raceway.”
TRYING SOMETHING NEW: Pocono this week will announce plans for the Friday of the late-July NASCAR race weekend, when it will hold a fan fest of sorts instead of on-track Cup Series action. The move, which industry execs have likened to trying to create an ESPN “College GameDay”-type atmosphere on the Friday of some Cup Series weekends, is part of a new dynamic this year in NASCAR where some tracks will only see two days of Cup Series action on Saturday and Sunday.
