This weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series travels to Watkins Glen International for their fifth road race of the year. Coverage of the Go Bowling at the Glen Sunday starts with Countdown to Green at 2 p.m. on NBCSN. The green flag is scheduled to fly around 3:15 p.m.
Records
and facts
Last year's Go Bowling at the Glen was a relatively clean race. There was only one caution for cause during the race. That was only due to James Davison
stalling on the track.
Martin Truex Jr. was right in the hunt in
the middle of the race, but had an unsatisfactory final pit stop. That allowed Kyle Larson to jump him in the pits. When the sequence ended up on lap 65, Larson ended up in the lead. From there, he held on to take his first Watkins Glen victory. Larson won by 2.43 seconds over teammate Chase Elliott, who started at the rear of the field after flunking inspection multiple times. Truex was third, then Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin.
Among active drivers, Elliott and Kyle Busch are the only drivers with more than one career
win at Watkins Glen. Busch won the 2008 and 2013 races on the road course and was within a lap of adding a third in 2012. You probably remember what happened there. Elliott won in 2018 and 2019. Six other previous winners will be in Sunday's race (Truex, Larson, AJ Allmendinger, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano).
Tony Stewart is the all-time winningest driver at Watkins Glen with five career
victories. Jeff Gordon is second with four career wins (three in a row from 1997-1999). Mark Martin won three consecutive races from the pole (1993-1995). Five other drivers (Busch, Elliott, Marcos Ambrose, Ricky Rudd and Rusty Wallace) have two wins each.
Track Facts
Track / Race Length: 2.45-mile road course, 90 laps (220.5 miles, 355.005 kilometers)
Banking: 6-10 degrees
Frontstretch: 2,150 ft.., flat
Backstretch: 2,600 ft., flat
Grandstand Seating: 38,900 (total capacity
is closer to 95,000)
Pit Road Speed: 40 mph
Pace Car Speed: 45
mph
Opened: 1956 (first Cup race in 1957)
Website: http://www.theglen.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WatkinsGlenInternational
Twitter: http://twitter.com/WGI
Pre-Race Schedule:
Practice: Saturday, Aug. 20, 12:05 - 12:50 p.m. on NBCSports.com (joined in
progress on USA at 12:30 p.m.)
Qualifying: Saturday, Aug. 20, 1:05 p.m. on USA
"Watkins Glen is higher in grip than most places. It seems simple, but it’s actually more technical because there is so much grip. It’s simple when it comes to the turns but that means all of the inputs are much more
important. It will be hard to pass so there’s a high risk of contact when it comes to passing.
On Kimi Raikkonen making his Cup debut this weekend and what he's been like: "He’s talked more in the time I’ve met with him in person, than I’ve ever heard him in all of the interviews I’ve seen and I’ve watched him for a very long time." - Ross Chastain
"Watkins Glen [International] was where I got my first win so it’s of course a place that
holds some great memories for me. We’ve had a good amount of success there as a team and I feel like this year we’ve come a long way in our road course program with the new car. This is a track that I feel like we can really go and have a good run and get some momentum back heading into the playoffs." - Chase Elliott
"It’s not as technical as some of the others. You have to focus a lot on the balance of the
car to be able to get around it. It’s a very high-speed track and there isn’t really a slow corner that you can use to set up a pass if you get behind. We’ve seen with the new car it’s been tough to pass, and guys have been really aggressive on the road courses, so I think we’ll for sure see some guys making moves that might not work." - Chase
Briscoe
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade
Photography.
