The 2016 Pennsylvania 400 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race that was originally scheduled for July 31, 2016.

Contested over 138 of the scheduled 160 laps on the 2.5-mile (4.0 km) speedway, it was the 21st race of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

From 1971 to 1989, and again since 2013, the track has also hosted an Indy Car race, currently sanctioned by the IndyCar Series and run in August.

It is run by the Igdalsky siblings Brandon and Nicholas, both of whom are third-generation members of the family-owned Mattco Inc, started by Joseph II and Rose Mattioli.

The preliminary entry list for the race included 41 cars and was released on July 25, 2016 at 2:55 p.m. Eastern time.

“We’ve obviously got speed now we’ll use the rest of the weekend to fine tune some things and get ready for Sunday.

Love this track and looking forward to having some fun on Sunday and trying to get to Victory Lane.”[12] Carl Edwards, who qualified second, said as he "crossed the line, I felt like, 'That’s it.'

A good way to start it off.”[14] Qualifying was delayed 20 minutes due to a "glitch" with the laser inspection station.

[15] “We had a little bit of a glitch this morning at the opening of inspection with our laser platform,” Scott Miller, NASCAR's senior vice president of competition and racing development, told NBCSN.

Jimmie Johnson was tagged for his crew being over the wall too soon and restarted the race from the tail end of the field.

Greg Biffle got the jump on Keselowski and assumed the lead as the second caution of the race flew for Martin Truex Jr. suffering a right-front tire blowout and slamming the wall in turn 2.

I knew something wasn’t right in (turn) one and two and I got real tight off of two on that restart and went down the back and was like, ‘Ah, it feels okay.’ And, as I got closer to the tunnel turn I felt it start to go down and by the time I let off and tried to slow down it was just going straight for the fence.”[19] He was spared a last-place finish by Reed Sorenson, who exited the race on lap 29 with engine issues.

Biffle maintained a quarter to half a second gap over the second-place car for a large portion of the run until Joey Logano drove under him in turn 2 to take the lead on lap 33.

Bad luck continued for Truex as he cut down his left-front tire and was forced to make an unscheduled stop on lap 41.

Danica Patrick, Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were tagged for speeding on pit road and were forced to serve pass through penalties.

Patrick was shown the black flag with the white cross, which meant she was no longer being scored until she served her pass through.

A number of cars began hitting pit road to make their final stop of the race with 37 laps to go.

[25] Buescher said after the race that crew chief "Bob (Osborne) made a good call to hold out on the weather and make sure that we could run as far out on fuel as we possibly could, and it worked out really well.

We needed about three more laps (before the fog), but it is what it is.”[27] After finishing third, Smith said he thought "it was obvious we played the same strategy that Buescher and those guys did to get ourselves up there, and as Brad alluded to, the cloud kind of came at just the right time for us.

We were within five or six laps of having to pit, but it’s a credit to my guys for seeing the opportunity to do that strategy, and when you’re a small team working hard to try and go up against some of the bigger teams that we do, you’ve got to take the opportunities when they present themselves, and today and this weekend in general, just kind of had that feeling to it with the rain on and off all weekend long, and we were able to make the most out of it, and it’s something I’m proud of them for doing, and happy for Tommy.”[28] NBC Sports covered the race on the television side.

Dave Burns, Parker Kligerman, Mike Massaro and Marty Snider reported from pit lane during the race.