Pocono experiences some bumps

Pocono Raceway keeps taking hits.

Often criticized by drivers for unnecessary 500-mile races and for clogging two spots on the Sprint Cup schedule, the 2 1/2-mile triangle track at Long Pond, Pa., is now deemed by some unsafe after an accident in the June race involving Kasey Kahne.

The rally cry of “shorten the races” has morphed into “make them safer” in advance of today’s Pennsylvania 500.

Track president Brandon Igdalsky is listening – and he’s promising to do what it takes to improve the track.

“Do we need to make changes? Yes,” he said.

Greg Biffle offered the harshest critique in a recent Sports Illustrated story, saying “they’re going to kill somebody there.” He added: “If they don’t change that racetrack – maybe not next year, maybe not three years from now – they’ll hurt somebody there.”

Igdalsky wants the feedback – even as he feels Biffle overstated the danger – and has already started planning safety improvements. The track is adding more SAFER barriers in time for next year’s race and would like to install a catch fence along the non-grandstand areas.

The barriers would be installed along the inside wall between turns 1 and 2 and down the “Long Pond” stretch.

Kahne was involved in a huge scare in the June race when he lost control of his car in the grass, went airborne and into the trees that line the track.

Had the car sailed higher, Kahne would have flipped out of the track.

“The Kasey thing was a freak thing,” Igdalsky said. “He didn’t make anything out of it. Everybody else decided to talk about it.”

Kyle Busch raced to his sixth victory in his last seven Nationwide starts and ninth of the season, leading 209 of 250 laps in a dominating run at Iowa Speedway in Newton.

Busch moved a victory away from the series season victory record of 10 he shares with Sam Ard.

Kevin Harvick was second, followed by Jason Leffler and Brad Keselowski.

NASCAR Truck Series

Elliott Sadler held off Kasey Kahne in a green-white-checkered finish to win the inaugural NASCAR Truck Series race at Pocono.

Sadler was the beneficiary after a flurry of late mishaps sent the trucks race into NASCAR’s version of overtime. He cut off Matt Crafton’s pass attempt inside, then pulled away from Kahne on the final lap.

Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel secured the pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest and will be joined by teammate Mark Webber on the front row.

Vettel posted a time of 1 minute, 18.773 seconds in qualifying for today’s race, 0.411 seconds ahead of Webber.