The Pocono 500 was an IndyCar Series race held at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, located in the Pocono Mountains. The first Indy car race at Pocono was held in 1971. It was the first major event held at the track, shortly after its completion. The race was sanctioned by USAC from 1971 to 1981, and then by CART from 1982 to 1989, and was known as the Pocono 500. The race was removed from the CART calendar following the 1989 running, due to poor track conditions, as well as poor revenue for the promoter.

After a 23-year hiatus, the event was revived by the IndyCar Series in 2013. Following management changes at the facility, and after comprehensive safety improvements were completed at the track, the race was scheduled for Independence Day weekend. For 2013, the race was scheduled for 400 miles, and was part of the IndyCar Triple Crown. For 2014, the race returned to its traditional 500-mile distance, and was scheduled in mid-to-late August.

A. J. Foyt is the most successful driver, with four wins. Rick Mears won the race three times during the CART years, and Will Power has won three times under IndyCar sanctioning.

The 2014 race, won by Juan Pablo Montoya, stands as the fastest 500-mile race in Indy car racing history. At an average speed of , it was the first 500-mile race to be completed in under two and a half hours.

Race history USAC The Pocono 500 began in 1971, as part of the USAC National Championship Trail. It was part of USAC's "triple crown", consisting of the Indianapolis 500, Pocono 500, and California 500. The race was popular, and the unique track layout was said to have been designed specifically with Champ/Indy cars in mind. USAC sanctioned the event through 1981.

During the early years, the Pocono 500 utilized an expanded two-week schedule, shorter, but similar to that of Indianapolis. A week of practice was followed by two days of time trials (Saturday-Sunday), followed by race day the following weekend. In some years, qualifying also consisted of four-lap runs, mimicking Indy. During the USAC years, the race was held in late-June/early-July, and for a time, race day itself was scheduled around Independence Day. For the first number of years, the starting field consisted of 33 cars, lined up in eleven rows of three, the same as Indy.

For 1977, the race schedule was trimmed back to one week. Practice opened on Tuesday, with time trials scheduled for Thursday and Friday, and the race on Sunday. Additionally, qualifying was reduced to two-lap runs instead of four-lap runs. Despite financial issues, traffic woes, and seemingly constant weather problems, the "Indianapolis of the East" established itself as a popular race on the National Championship Trail, attracting crowds in excess of 100,000 spectators during most of the 1970s. Nevertheless, various squabbles between track ownership and the sanctioning body were common.

In 1979, the race occurred in the midst of the first USAC/CART "Split". Nearly all of the CART-based teams skipped the event, angering track management, who remained loyal to USAC. Attendance and revenue dropped, and nearly bankrupted the facility. For 1980, IMS agreed to lease the track for the 1980 CRL schedule, which featured a full field of competitors. The 1981 race was even more controversial. Most CART teams again boycotted the event, and the track management ultimately sued for damages. USAC opened up the entry list to Silver Crown cars in order to fill out the grid, and it was run as a two-class race.

CART

After organizational changes following the first USAC/CART "split," the Pocono 500 switched to the CART series beginning in 1982. The lawsuit filed by track owner/promoter Dr. Joseph Mattioli was settled out of court, and the CART series would race at the track for at least the next five years. The relationship between the two parties was tumultuous at times, but the event continued nevertheless through the decade of the 1980s. The race moved from June to August after the track added a second NASCAR Winston Cup Series race to their schedule. Moving to August allowed the race to be distanced from Indy, and was set two to three weeks after the Michigan 500, giving teams more preparation time between 500-mile races.

The increasingly rough condition of the course made the race demanding, and sometimes led to high attrition and surprise winners. The unique characteristics of the course, as well as the bumpiness, kept speeds slightly down from those at Indianapolis and Michigan, but the race was still popular, and for a time, was well-attended. Several major crashes in the latter years injured several drivers, including Johnny Rutherford, Kevin Cogan, John Andretti, Arie Luyendyk, Michael Greenfield, and Mario Andretti. By the late 1980s, drivers had become increasingly vocal about their displeasure with the condition of the track, some even calling for the event to be dropped.

Despite the ongoing squabbles between the series and the ownership, the race was the site of some memorable moments in Indy car history. In 1985, it was the site of Rick Mears' first win after recovering from his devastating injuries suffered in 1984. It was also the first and only Indy car win for the Judd AV engine, which occurred in 1988.

Following the 1989 event, the track was officially deemed too rough and unsuitable for Indy cars. The circuit still had metal boilerplate retaining walls, lacked catch fencing around the entire perimeter, and lacked proper runoff areas. It was heavily criticized for its roughness, cracks, and frequent debris that would cause dangerous tire punctures. Once, after Scott Pruett punctured seven tires during practice, car owner Steve Horne walked the track and returned with a handful of nails and other junk he had retrieved. The Pocono 500 was removed from the schedule indefinitely, as neither track management nor series officials were interested in continuing the event.

Though the track safety conditions were the reasons stated by the sanctioning body, track management also believed the event to be a money-loser for the facility. Furthermore, according to CART medical director Dr. Steve Olvey, during the 1980s the track's medical facilities were grossly inadequate, with track owner Dr. Joe Mattioli himself listed as the "track doctor," despite his profession being dentistry.

IndyCar During both 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races, heavy crashes on the Long Pond Straight sent circuit management to call for significant safety improvements to the track. SAFER barriers were added to inside walls, catch fencing was installed around the entire perimeter, paved runoff areas were built around the majority of the infield. The safety upgrades, as well as changes announced by the third-generation Igdalsky family (including repaving the circuit with new concrete pit stalls), led to discussions with IndyCar officials regarding the revival of the Pocono IndyCar race.

Speculation ran rampant in 2012 after the cancellation of the Indy Qingdao 600 that Pocono could have been used as a last-minute substitute. However, nothing materialized. On October 1, 2012, the track officially announced they would host the Pocono IndyCar 400 for the IndyCar Series on July 4 weekend starting in 2013. The change in race distance was requested by broadcaster ABC.ABC only wanted 400 miles of IndyCar at Pocono Keith Groller, The Morning Call, October 02, 2012

For 2014, the race returned to its traditional 500-mile distance. The three 500-mile "triple crown" races (Indianapolis, Fontana, and Pocono) would also award drivers double points towards the championship.Series makes changes to 2014 points system Crash.net, March 21, 2014. For 2015, the race secured the title sponsorship of ABC Supply Co., and was moved to its once familiar calendar slot in late-August.

After relatively clean, nearly caution-free races in 2013–2014, tragedy struck in 2015. Driver Justin Wilson was struck in the head by a piece of debris which had flown off of Sage Karam's crashed car. Wilson was airlifted to the hospital but died the next day from his injuries. In 2018, Robert Wickens was paralyzed from the waist down after a huge crash saw him get up into the catchfence. A year later in 2019, another huge pileup on the opening lap saw Felix Rosenqvist flip up into the catchfence, but no drivers were seriously injured.

On September 1, 2019, the 2020 IndyCar schedule was released, along with the announcement that they would not be returning to Pocono in 2020. It marked the second time that the track had been taken off the Indy car schedule. The race was replaced with a revived event at Richmond - a race that was later cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not confirmed if the removal of Pocono was permanent, and the reasons for the removal were unclear. Drivers Sage Karam and Robert Wickens tweeted that the track was too dangerous for Indy cars, citing major crashes in 2018 and 2019. In their press conference after the 2019 race, Scott Dixon, Will Power, and Simon Pagenaud defended the track's safety and expressed desire that IndyCar would return. Speculation during 2020 suggested the possibility of a return for IndyCar to Pocono beyond 2021, though as of now, there are no confirmed plans for IndyCar to return to Pocono Raceway. With NASCAR experimenting with running their two Pocono races as a doubleheader, it leaves room for an IndyCar weekend. While Pocono Raceway has expressed disappointment and left the door open for a potential return in the future, IndyCar has moved on.

Past winners