Martin makes most of Pocono's harder tire
Jeff Hammond / FOXSports.com
Posted: 11 hours ago

After winning at New Hampshire, Kyle Busch made a very valid point. He jumped four positions in the points to fourth, but if he makes a mistake, he could easily lose six at Pocono. It's so tight that these guys can't let up.

Anybody in the top 10 in the point standings has an excellent chance to win this week, and the guys that are in the top 10 are making such an effort to maintain their position or climb up the ladder. We're going to see intense racing over these final seven races before the Chase. It's such a tight and ever-moving target when it comes to who's in and who's out. It's going to be a whale of a run just to get to Richmond and see who's going to be the last man standing.

Who to Watch
# Mark Martin: With a harder tire for this race than the teams ran in June, expect the veterans like Martin to adjust a little bit better than some of the rookies.
# Tony Stewart: We're going to find out what kind of champion that Stewart is. Can he rally back? Can crew chief Greg Zipadelli come up with a combination that will allow him to pick up a few points and get a little closer to that 10th position?
# Kurt Busch: The No. 2 team has to rally back. This is it. If they drop the ball this weekend, it will be time to look ahead to 2007 because 2006 will be out of reach. Busch and his team are under pressure to perform and respond this week.
# Kasey Kahne: After slipping a spot in the standings each of the past two weeks, Kahne and the No. 9 team should turn it around this week.


What to Watch
# Harder tire: The tire for June's race was hard enough, but for some reason, the folks at Goodyear think that they need to make a change. A lot of teams don't quite understand it and are pretty upset about it, but they will have to adjust.
# Braking point: Drivers use a lot of brake getting into the turns and getting control of these cars. Teams will come back with bigger brake packages like the ones that they ran at Loudon and Martinsville because so many drivers — most notably Greg Biffle — overworked them and got in trouble in June. I never would have believed that so many brake problems would happen at a place like Pocono. But drivers don't shift with NASCAR's new gear ratio rule so it puts a huge burden on the brakes and the drivers to determine how hard they can get into these corners and how quickly they can get back in the gas to keep up their speed and momentum.

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