Weather watch at Pocono Raceway: what conditions should fans expect race weekend?
Weather was the biggest story related to race weekend at Pocono Raceway in 2024, when a thunderstorm caused a parking and traffic nightmare for fans and spectators.
Track president Ben May addressed the issues with traffic last year and has taken action to avoid that outcome as much as possible, but ultimately, everyone at the Tricky Triangle is at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Advertisement
Now that race weekend it quickly approaching, here's what attendees can prepare for regarding weather.
What are the projected weather conditions for Pocono Raceway?
According to the Weather Channel, there is a minimal chance of rain all three days ― 18% on Friday, 12% on Saturday and 20% on Sunday. Winds are also projected to be around 10 MPH all weekend.
It's expected to rain significantly Monday through Thursday, notably a 50% chance on Thursday, but it should subside after that.
Sunday's Cup Series race, which is what most fans are preparing for, is projected to be partly cloudy with a high of 82 degrees and a low of 65 degrees.
Advertisement
Friday's CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and Saturday's Xfinity Series have similar weather projections: highs of low 80s and high 70s, and lows of mid 60s and high 50s.
This story will be updated if there are significant weather changes.
What happened last year at Pocono Raceway?
During race weekend last year, a severe thunderstorm before the Cup Series race forced the parking staff to be pulled off of the roads. During that time, attendees tried to park themselves, which created a massive traffic jam that cause many people to miss significant parts of the race.
Track CEO Nick Igdalsky talked about the effects the storm had on the event, and ensured action would be taken to address the issue.
This article originally appeared on Pocono Record: Pocono Raceway weather projections: what NASCAR fans should expect
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Report: NASCAR working toward hosting street course race in San Diego
NASCAR is entering its third season racing at the Chicago street course. (Photo by Ben Hsu/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Could NASCAR have a new street course race next season? According to the Athletic, the sanctioning body is working with San Diego to host a race on the streets of the city. NASCAR currently has just one points race in the state of California and no races in Southern California. NASCAR and the city of San Diego have not yet agreed on a deal, but discussions are ongoing, and it is expected that an agreement will be reached, according to those sources. An announcement is tentatively slated for next month, pending a finalized deal. NASCAR and Sports San Diego, the city's sports tourism commission, declined comment. Advertisement NASCAR hasn't raced in Southern California since Auto Club Speedway closed in 2023. The exhibition Clash was briefly held at the Los Angeles Coliseum, but it was at North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2025 and appears to be in line to rotate among other short tracks. The 2026 NASCAR Cup Series schedule has not been announced and a race in San Diego could be one of many different pieces in the schedule. The Chicago street course race is entering its third year in 2025 but there is no long-term agreement beyond the season to keep NASCAR racing in Chicago. The first Chicago race weekend in 2023 was plagued by rain. The Chicago street course race was added after NASCAR stopped racing at Chicagoland Speedway in 2020. Unlike Auto Club Speedway, the 1.5-mile Chicagoland Speedway has not been torn down. If San Diego is added to the schedule in 2026, would it take the place of an existing road course race? Simple math reasons that it would. Among the 36 races on the 2025 Cup Series schedule, five are being held on road and street courses. While it's not impossible that NASCAR would go to a sixth road course race, it also may create too much of an imbalance between traditional oval racing and road course racing. Last week's race in Mexico City became the fifth race on the schedule. The race won by Shane van Gisbergen was the first Cup Series race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. At the moment, NASCAR and race officials have not agreed on a contract to return for 2026.
Yahoo
36 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Real American Freestyle wrestling to debut at Cleveland's Wolstein Center with Olympic medalists
Real American Freestyle wrestling's inaugural event will be held at the 13,000-seat Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio on Aug. 30, commissioner Hulk Hogan said in a statement. 'Cleveland is an incredible city, and Real American Freestyle is channeling its rock and roll style into this first event,' he said. Advertisement The first set of matches and the location for the new promotion's first event were announced Wednesday. The first two women's matches are American Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hildebrandt vs. Mexico's Zeltzin Hernandez Guerra and American Olympic silver medalist Kennedy Blades vs. Mexico's Alejandra Rivera Arriaga. The men's matches so far are Real Woods vs. Darrion Caldwell and Austin Gomez vs. Lance Palmer. The format will include eight men's and four women's matches. Major signings have included American Olympic medalists Kyle Snyder, Kyle Dake and Aaron Brooks and NCAA heavyweight champion Wyatt Hendrickson. ___ AP sports: Cliff Brunt, The Associated Press
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Mandel's Mailbag: Is Baylor-Auburn a sneaky Week 1 splash? Will House settlement affect fans?
Welcome to my first Mailbag since May 14, which means I haven't had a chance to weigh in on the approval of the House settlement and what it means. You guys had plenty of questions about it. But what do you say we start with something lighter? (Note: Submitted questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.) Advertisement If you are trying to attend the best game every week this season but can go to each stadium only one time, which games would you pick? — Paul G., Cincinnati I love challenges like this. Week 1: Texas at Ohio State. I'm using up my Horseshoe trip early. It helps that Michigan is in Ann Arbor this year. Week 2: Michigan at Oklahoma. Can't miss John Mateer vs. Bryce Underwood in prime time. Or the Sooner Schooner. Week 3: Florida at LSU. This one is easy. Death Valley is my favorite atmosphere in the country. Week 4: Washington at Washington State. Washington's first trip to the Palouse since bolting the Pac-12. Week 5: Oregon at Penn State. It's Alabama-Georgia that week, but I'm not skipping a White Out at Beaver Stadium. Week 6: Clemson at North Carolina. While Kenan Stadium is not on my bucket list, Swinney vs. Belichick might be. Week 7: Oklahoma vs. Texas in Dallas. It's been too long since I last hit the Texas State Fair. Corn dogs for all. Week 8: USC at Notre Dame. I figure I'd better go this year if USC goes through with chickening out of this rivalry. Week 9: Alabama at South Carolina. Brice-Williams is vastly underrated, and LaNorris Sellers is not. Week 10: Georgia vs. Florida. Embarrassing confession: I have never been to a Cocktail Party. Week 11: BYU at Texas Tech. I'm passing on LSU-Alabama to make sure I hit at least one Big 12 game. Week 12: Texas at Georgia. Not sure I need a justification here. Week 13: USC at Oregon. It's a light week on paper, and I won't pass up a trip to Autzen. Week 14: Ohio State at Michigan. No shortage of good choices, but how can I skip this one after last season? Week 15: The SEC Championship in Atlanta. It could be the last one before this becomes a 1 vs. 8 College Football Playoff play-in game. I can almost guarantee that some of these will be flops by the time they come around, but I'll have fun regardless. Advertisement Do you anticipate the recent House settlement allowing players to be directly compensated having much effect on the current implementation of name, image and likeness? Will direct compensation replace some of the NIL money now being distributed by collectives, or will it more likely be in addition to it? — Pat M. Most schools' collectives currently fall well short of $20.5 million in funding, so for most of them, revenue sharing will become the primary means for compensating athletes. But for the schools at the top of the food chain? That depends on who you ask. Commissioners, athletic directors and coaches are expressing a mystifying level of confidence that the new NIL Go clearinghouse, operated by Deloitte, will succeed in ensuring rev share doesn't just replace outside 'NIL' deals but in fact obliterate them. Athletes are required to submit any deals worth more than $600 for approval to ensure they're for a 'valid business purpose' (i.e., social media endorsements, autograph signings, charity appearances) and within a 'range of compensation' that's of fair-market value. Florida men's basketball coach Todd Golden predicted to Hoops HQ that players will soon be making just '10 to 20 percent' of what they did in the past two years. Ohio State AD Ross Bjork told Yahoo that collectives created a 'false market' and that the 'real' NIL market will be more like the pros, where 'NIL deals for pro athletes are really small.' Do they truly believe the words coming out of their mouths? Pro athletes' salaries only ever go up and up and up. College coaches' salaries only ever go up and up and up. But we are to believe that the new College Sports Commission has devised a foolproof system to decrease college athletes' compensation that is — how do you say it — legal? Over the last dozen years, judges from across the political spectrum, including the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, have found it to be an illegal restraint of trade for the NCAA's membership to enforce policies that restrict athletes' earnings. And yet the House settlement itself is a two-part restriction in which Division I members will cap what schools can pay their athletes ($20.5 million) while also capping how much athletes can earn on deals made outside the schools. Advertisement CBS Sports recently reported that Texas Tech is locked into NIL deals totaling $55 million for the upcoming school year, between rev share and its collective. (Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell confirmed that number to my colleague Sam Khan.) Either their payroll is going down by more than 60 percent a year from now, or, as I strongly suspect, a judge will have long since issued an injunction that ties the enforcers' hands. Will the new CEO (Bryan Seeley) of the College Sports Commission publicize what the penalties will be moving forward for improper NIL or under-the-table recruiting enticements? — Nick K. All we've gotten are some nebulous quotes from administrators assuring us the penalties will be 'substantive,' 'stiff,' and 'severe.' Either this is the most leakproof endeavor in the history of college athletics, or, more likely, they're not finished devising them. While we're at it, here's a list of some other specifics notably missing so far about a body that we're being told will get the NIL landscape fully under control and fundamentally change how the enterprise operates. • How will CSC monitor tens of thousands of NIL transactions across every Division I sport to ensure the athletes and/or their agents are reporting all of them, and that they're being paid the actual numbers it says in the contract? • What are the inputs used to calculate fair-market value, and will you be transparent with the public in explaining exactly why a player got his deal rejected and is now opting to play for a different school? • Let's say a running back gets his deal rejected in August. Then, in Week 1, he runs for 250 yards and garners Heisman Trophy buzz. Can he get his fair-market value reassessed, and how quickly can that get done? • Most contracts include a confidentiality clause. Does this mean you're forcing the athlete to break it by submitting the deal to Deloitte? Will CSC cover the costs if they get sued? Advertisement • Along those same lines, an athlete who gets their deal rejected can appeal to an arbitrator who supposedly has 'subpoena power' to produce documents. Can you really subpoena a third-party booster or company that is not bound by the House settlement and never agreed to this process? • And what are the penalties, and will you announce them publicly? I've got more, but I'll hang up and listen for now. I know that you are against a salary cap, but the decision and the establishment of a governing body to regulate NIL money make a salary cap very possible. — Edward B. I'm not against a salary cap. I just think this one, which was not negotiated with the players themselves, is legally dubious. Also, that was not a question. There has been no honeymoon for Bill Belichick at UNC. He hasn't coached a game yet and people are speculating that he will resign or are calling for his resignation. How much of this is just the chorus of haters who have been waiting for years to dunk on him, and how much is legitimate concern? — Rick T., Hamilton, N.J. Both? I'm sure NFL fans who either grew tired of Belichick's dominance with the Patriots and/or saw their teams get their butts kicked over and over by the Patriots are getting a kick out of seeing a series of headlines about a 24-year-old girlfriend who may or may not be running his life right now. Case in point, see this amusing Tim Graham story where he talked to several former Buffalo Bills about the eroding perception of the guy who routinely vanquished them. 'All the distractions that he talked against,' laughed former Bills defensive back/linebacker Bryan Scott, 'that's why he's in the headlines.' Nevertheless, there's plenty of reason to be concerned. None of this is normal. It may be that Jordon Hudson made for good offseason fodder but will fade into the background once preseason camp starts and we become more focused on actual football. But none of this has eased my initial concerns. Advertisement One of which is: Is he really all that dedicated to his job? We know he spent a weekend in mid-May at the Miss Maine Pageant. And my colleague Brendan Marks inadvertently and hilariously stumbled into him during a New England golfing weekend shortly after that. Nothing wrong with a little R&R, I suppose, except that May weekends are often when recruits take official visits. Most coaches in America were likely hosting at least a few. But maybe UNC spaced out its visits to accommodate his schedule. And to be clear, he's not going to resign. He doesn't need to resign. Anyone suggesting otherwise is going out of their way to manufacture a hot take. When do you think the settlement and change fatigue will set in for most fans? — Daniel R. I think it already has. Let's just say House settlement stories are not exactly the most widely read on The Athletic. We need Deion Sanders or Jordon Hudson to weigh in on it. Assuming Julian Sayin (Ohio State) and CJ Carr (Notre Dame) are named starters for their respective teams, which supporting cast would you prefer for a first-time starting QB: Ohio State, with the best receiver duo in the country (Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate) with a good tight end (Max Klare), but several new starters along the offensive line? Or the best running back in the country (Jeremiyah Love) and nearly an entire returning offensive line, but questionable wide receivers? — Michael M. You may be short-changing both Ohio State's offensive line and Notre Dame's receivers. The Buckeyes' three interior O-linemen (Luke Montgomery, Carson Hinzman and Tegra Tshabola) all started in the national championship, and Rice transfer Ethan Onianwa was one of the most coveted tackles in the portal last cycle. Meanwhile, Notre Dame's Jaden Greathouse is coming off of back-to-back 100-yard receiving games against Penn State and Ohio State in the CFP semis and title game, and Malachi Fields was an 800-plus-yard guy at Virginia each of the past two seasons. Which is to say, both Sayin and Carr are walking into highly favorable situations. But of the two, I'd rather be Sayin. For one, Ryan Day has a pretty spectacular track record with quarterbacks, and his offense allows for more big-play opportunities in the passing game than Marcus Freeman's. But most of all, Jeremiah Smith. He's that good. He and Tate will likely turn a lot of not-perfect passes into big gains. Advertisement Will players eventually become bigger than programs? — Jamar G. I highly doubt it. Ask Nico Iamaleava. Is the Friday night Auburn at Baylor game a great under-the-radar Week 1 game? Baylor finished strong and should be among the top of the Big 12, while a road win for Auburn could set the tone for a turnaround year. — Anthony V. Absolutely. Baylor snuck up on folks down the stretch last year. In fact, it looked like Dave Aranda was in big trouble after going 3-9 in 2023 and starting 2-4 last season. But then the Bears' offense, under first-year coordinator Jake Spavital, exploded in a 59-35 win at Texas Tech, which they then rode on a six-game winning streak to end the regular season before falling 44-31 to LSU in their bowl game. Quarterback Sawyer Robertson is back, as are running backs Bryson Washington and Dawson Pendergrass, receivers Josh Cameron and Ashtyn Hawkins, and four offensive line starters. And yet, Auburn, a sub-.500 program the past four seasons, will be expected to win on the road, simply by virtue of being an SEC team. Based on the early preseason power rankings out there, the Tigers will likely be around a 2- to 4-point favorite. Auburn was a weird team last year. All the Tigers' metrics suggest they should have finished much better than 5-7. Their offense finished No. 9 nationally in yards per play (6.7), their defense 18th (4.9). They should have been, at worst, a Top 25 team. But they couldn't stop turning the ball over (No. 106) and couldn't convert much of anything in the red zone (No. 109). Thus, they went 2-6 in the SEC, 5-7 overall. Personally, I think they could be much better in Hugh Freeze's third season. Oklahoma transfer QB Jackson Arnold, who became a scapegoat for a Sooners team with zero receivers, should be an upgrade from Payton Thorne. Last year's breakout freshman receiver Cam Coleman is a stud, and several young defenders emerged last season. I have the Bears No. 21 and the Tigers No. 24 in my post-spring Top 25. So yes, a great prime-time game for Fox that leads into Texas-Ohio State the next morning (my time). Advertisement The fan reaction to the House settlement was a lot of doom and gloom and anger. I get it that there are changes that affect players and athletic department administrators, but as a fan of a mid-tier, non-Playoff Power 4 team who enjoys sitting in the stands or watching TV on a Saturday, I don't see how the recent changes affect my experience or fandom. How might the changes affect fans? — Steve You guys would have to tell me, because I'm a neutral observer. I have not experienced the pain of losing my star quarterback to another program with more money or my team turning over 75 percent of its roster from one year to the next. But for all the bellyaching about NIL and the portal on social media, comments sections, etc., there has yet to be any drop in interest in the actual games in the four seasons since players began getting paid. If anything, it's up. Last year, the ESPN networks, which includes ABC, had their most-watched regular season in eight years. Across all networks, 53 games drew four million-plus viewers, pretty much identical to the year before (54). In 2019, the last non-COVID season before NIL kicked in, there were 44. This is at a time when ratings for pretty much everything else sports-wise on television are down, save the NFL and WNBA. As for attendance, I have not seen any trend reports for 2024 yet — likely because Dennis Dodd retired — but a year ago, he wrote that average attendance rose in both 2022 and '23 after eight consecutive years of it going in the other direction. So to Steve's question, I would ask one back: If the previous changes to the sport didn't affect interest in the games, why would the House settlement? All it really does is change the main source of the money that the players are already receiving. I think we can all agree that the governance of college sports is an absolute disaster. But the product itself has not suffered in the slightest. Fall Saturdays are still incomparable. The upsets, the crazy plays, the field stormings and the surrender cobras aren't going anywhere. The fine folks at Deloitte may have the authority to rob college kids of their money, but they can't rob our fun.
