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 1:30 p.m. ET on USA Network. Race coverage will start at 2 p.m. ET with the green flag scheduled to fly around 2:15 p.m. ET
Records and facts
Last year's Go Bowling at the Glen was very quick. With no stage breaks, the whole race was completed in under two hours.
The race came down to a late restart.
Carson Hocevar technically led at the line, but Shane van Gisbergen was able to take it back.
On the final lap, van Gisbergen made an unenforced error. Prior to the season, WGI changed the curbing entering the Inner Loop in reaction to data presented by drivers (most notably Kyle Larson) that showed how the curbs were negatively impacting their bodies. The new curbing made it far easier to cut the corner.
Van Gisbergen ended up cutting it too close
and hit the inside wall entering the Inner Loop. That allowed Chris Buescher to give him the bumper and take the lead. From there, Buescher held on to win his first career Cup Series road race.
Van Gisbergen ended up second, .979 seconds back. Hocevar ended up third, then Ross Chastain and Zane Smith.
Among active drivers, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch each have two career wins 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, while Larson won in 2021 and 2022. Four other previous winners will be in Sunday's race (Allmendinger, Byron, Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin).
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). Six other drivers (Busch, Elliott, Larson, 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. 9, 11:30 a.m. - 12:50 p.m. ET on TruTV/HBO Max
Qualifying: Saturday, Aug. 9, 1 p.m. ET on TruTV/HBO Max
Say What?!
"Watkins Glen is always special to me; it’s a
racetrack that we’re always really fast at as well. We have the opportunity to be in contention this weekend if we execute well. Obviously, we want a shot to win, but ultimately, we need a solid run, and this is a racetrack that we can do it at." - AJ Allmendinger
"I think it was probably the first time that people really got to see Spire cars running up front and holding our own. Since then it’s only been improvement for the whole organization. We have up and down weeks, but that’s part of building a consistently successful program.
Every weekend we have at least two cars running in the top 10, if not all three right there together. I just think Watkins Glen last year was a race where people started to pay attention. That’s definitely continued this season and I feel like the last two races are a really good example of that. At Indy we had two cars finish within the first 11 spots and Iowa we had a car in the top 10 all day and probably would’ve had similar results without the way the cautions fell in the middle of the
race. I’m excited to get back to The Glen. We’ve got a lot of momentum heading into this race and we’ve done a really good job of continuing to improve at tracks where we’ve done well in the past." - Carson Hocevar
"Watkins Glen has been a good track for me. It’s a high-speed road course that keeps you on edge every lap — you’re constantly cycling through gears, managing
brake zones, and using every inch of the curbing to find time. We struggled in Iowa, but I think we can regain momentum this weekend." - Todd Gilliland
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.
