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 NASCAR RaceDay at 1:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1. Race coverage will start at 3 p.m. ET with the green flag scheduled to fly around 3:15 p.m. ET
Records and facts
Last year's Go Bowling at the Glen was dominated by Shane van Gisbergen. While he only led 38 of the 90 laps due to pit strategy, he ran away and hid once he got the lead for good on lap 74. No one could prevent him from winning.
Van Gisbergen won by 11.116 seconds over Christopher Bell. Chris Buescher was third, then William Byron and Chase Briscoe.
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. Six other previous winners will be in Sunday's race (Allmendinger, Byron, Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin Truex Jr.).
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, 100 laps (245 miles, 394.943 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, May 9, 1 - 1:50 p.m. ET on Prime Video
Qualifying: Saturday, May 4, 2:10 p.m. ET on Prime Video
Say What?!
"I love Watkins Glen. It’s always been a great place, great countryside, and is a lot of fun. Watkins Glen has always kind of been considered one of the superspeedways of road courses; it’s just a really fast course. A lot of speed there. I always look at every single racetrack wanting to win, and fortunately I’ve won there
in the O’Reilly Series and the Cup Series. I’m excited to get back on the road courses again. Back in the years when we used to have only two road courses on the schedule, you would’ve kind of looked at it as a, ‘well hey you know it’s kind of like an off-weekend. Just treat it like an off-weekend, it doesn’t mean much if you run well or if you don’t,’ but now there’s six road courses on the schedule. There’s enough of a bulk of a schedule of races that you got to be a good road racer. I feel
like being ahead of the game in that and being able to win races there in the past lends itself fairly well for me." - Kyle Busch
"COTA and Watkins Glen are very different. Overall, our road-course cars and speed have been good. This is our second road course of the year, so hopefully, we can have a day similar to COTA. It’s important to
unload close and qualify well, to have a good shot at it in the race. Watkins Glen is just a cool road course. I have always loved going up there. The rhythm and flow make for a good track. You have to attack the bus stop, carry a lot of momentum into the esses, with very little room for error. It is a lot of fun, and I enjoy it. I think more than anything is when you're driving with a smile on your face, you're usually doing pretty good." - Michael McDowell
"Road courses have always been my strong suit. Outside of the superspeedways, I feel like places like Watkins Glen provide an opportunity for FRM’s cars to run up front. We struggled in Texas, but it’s a new weekend with new opportunities to move up in the standings." - Zane
Smith
Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected]. Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade
Photography.
