Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400

Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Venue	Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania
Corporate sponsor	Axalta
First race	1982
Distance	400 Miles (643.737 km)
Laps	160
Previous names	Van Scoy Diamond Mine 500 (1982–1985) Miller High Life 500 (1986–1989) Miller Genuine Draft 500 (1990) Champion Spark Plug 500 (1991–1993) UAW-GM Teamwork 500 (1994–1996) Pocono 500 (1997–2009) Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 (2010) 5-hour Energy 500 (2011) Pocono 400 Presented by #NASCAR (2012)[1] Party in the Poconos 400 Presented by Walmart (2013) Pocono 400 (2014)

The Axalta "We Paint Winners" 400 is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race held annually at Pocono Raceway (14 of 36) in Long Pond, Pennsylvania; it is the first of two Sprint Cup races at Pocono Raceway, with the other being the Pennsylvania 400 on NBC. The 400-mile race at Pocono Raceway replaced a 400-mile race at Texas World Speedway on NASCAR's schedule beginning with the 1982 season. It was moved to the former USAC Marlboro Championship Trail date in June, displacing the Indy cars to August.

The race was a 500-mile event from its inception in 1982, through the 2011 race. Both Pocono races were shortened to 400 miles in 2012, and presently run at that length.^[2]

Past winners

• 2000: Race postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.
• 2005 & 2010: Race extended due to a green–white–checker finish.
• 2007: Race shortened due to rain/darkness.
• 2012: Race distance changed from 500 to 400 miles in length. First ever 400-miler at Pocono.

Multiple winners (drivers)

Multiple winners (teams)

Manufacturer wins

Notable races

• 1982: Dale Earnhardt flipped over Tim Richmond going into Turn 1, and suffered a neck injury that he hid until the end of the season. Because of a 1984 Busch Clash crash involving Ricky Rudd where he hid his injuries, NASCAR changed rules later that season mandating medical clearance from NASCAR officials before racing.

• 1988: Bobby Allison reported a flat tire before the race, he tried to complete 1 lap, but he did not. Driving into the Tunnel Turn, Allison blew the tire and slammed the Outside wall. To make things worse, Jocko Maggiacomo T-Bone'd Allison in the drivers side door, and Allison suffered career ending injuries.

• 2000: Jeremy Mayfield, had a run on Dale Earnhardt and he intimidated Dale out of the lead giving Mayfield the win. It was a popular win among the fans and Mayfield said in his Victory Lane interview that he wanted to "rattle his cage".

• 2006: Denny Hamlin becomes the first rookie to sweep at Pocono.

• 2009: Tony Stewart becomes the first owner-driver to win since Ricky Rudd at Martinsville in 1997. It was also the first race in NASCAR's history to introduce double file restarts.

• 2010: On the Long Pond Straightaway, Kasey Kahne spun across the track on the last lap and became airborne, collecting Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman and others. Denny Hamlin won the race, which had been delayed by several hours for rain.

• 2012: Twenty-two-year-old Joey Logano muscles his way past his mentor, 53-year-old Mark Martin to score his second Cup win (first in a race that wasn't truncated) on a freshly repaved Pocono Raceway, snapping a 104 race winless skid. Joey started on the pole with a new track record, led 49 of the 160 laps, and won by about a second to win the first scheduled 400 mile long race at Pocono. Mark Martin for the seventh time in his career, finished second at The Tricky Triangle.

• 2013: Qualifying was rained out, so points leader Jimmie Johnson started on the pole. Johnson dominated the race, leading 128 laps, and held off Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the last laps to snap a nine year winless Pocono streak. On a darker note, this marked the last NASCAR race for Jason Leffler before he was killed later that week in a sprint car accident at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey.

• 2014: Brad Keselowski dominated the race, leading 95 of 160 laps, but Dale Earnhardt, Jr. passed him with four laps to go to take the victory when Keselowski tried to use the lapped car of Danica Patrick to clean trash from his grille. Earnhardt, Jr. became the fourth straight different driver in the Hendrick Motorsports team to win at Pocono, after Jeff Gordon in August 2012, and Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne in the June and August 2013 races respectively.

Television broadcasters

References

External links

• Ratings/Viewership For Pocono 500 Since 2000