Chris Buescher, the last driver out for this year’s Playoffs, made his presence known in the Round 1-Race 2 win at Watkins Glen in a wild card race that wound up biting most of the Playoff Contenders. Buescher rolled off 24th, managed to get through the Lap 1 melee, climbed to 16th by the end of Stage 2 and 6th by mid-race. On fresher tires, he passed Ross Chastain for the Lead on lap 57 and cycled back, passing Joey Logano for the Lead on Lap 74. He held that lead until the late race chaos on Lap 89. Shane Van Gisbergen moved Buescher up the track in Turn 1 of the first lap of the Green-White-Checker and appeared to have the race well in hand until a wide exit of the Bus Stop on the last lap cracked open the door that Buescher then kicked open and drove through for his final Racing Lead Change.
Once in clean air, Buescher set sail and beat SVG to the flag for the 0.979 second win.
Watkins Glen was Chris Buescher’s first win of the season, his 6th Cup win overall. This ranks him 78th on the All-Time Win List and 13th on the Active Full Time Cup Win List. This was his 5th GEN-7 win, which ties him with Ryan Blaney on the GEN-7 Win List.
This was Watkins Glen’s time in the Playoffs. If the race had of run in its normal, late regular season slot and Buescher could have secured the win, he would be in the Playoff’s looking Out, instead of on the Outside, looking In. Timing has kind of been the story of the 17’s season. Instead, his win now places him second in Non-Qualifier Points (18th overall), 8 points behind Stage 2 winner and leader of the most laps, Ross Chastain.
The Race had 11 Lead Changes among 9 Leaders. Ross Chastain led the most laps (51 of 92) while race-winner Buescher led the most times (3), all Racing Lead Changes (green flag passes for the Lead without benefit of Starts/Restarts or Leader pitting from lead).
Below is a breakdown of the Lead Changes-
This was the 6th race of the season where Buescher passed for a Racing Lead Change. His 3 RLC’s in this race gave him a total of 11 for the season, ranking him 8th in the RLC standings. RLC Leader Denny Hamlin had a “Timex” Day – He took a licking but kept on ticking – getting into incident after incident but was able to continue and taking advantage of not one but two “Lucky Dogs” manage to limp home in 23rd. He started 22nd, got into the first lap wreck and could get no higher than 10th. Here is the latest RLC Standings –
As mentioned earlier, Watkins Glen “bit” several of the Playoff Contenders, making it almost an inverse of last week’s Atlanta race. Atlanta saw 9 Playoff Contenders finish in the Top 10. The Glen saw only 2 Contenders in the Top 10 and only 1, Chase Briscoe in the Top 5. CRB, Champion Ryan Blaney got bit by the DVP policy after the Lap 1 multi-car crash. William Byron tried to exit the track by climbing the ARMCO barrier as Brad Keselowski literally drove under him. Daniel Suarez found the last remaining gravel trap on the reconfigured track resulting in an untimely caution that cost his teammate Ross Chastain a chance for the win. Christopher Bell took a spin off the nose of Austin Dillon while trying to enter the pits. By the end of the day at least 10 Playoff contenders had been affected in some form or fashion.
The long-awaited return of Juan Pablo Montoya turned out to be more low-key than anticipated as he was able to climb to 8thbefore finishing back in the low 30’s. On the other end of the road race ringer spectrum was SVG, who started 3rd, ran in the Top 15 over 90% of the race, had the highest number of fastest laps (18) and took the lead on the White Flag lap, to come home P-2.
Spire Motorsports had a stellar day, placing all three cars in the Top 10, with Carson Hocevar (P-3), Zane Smith (P-5) and Corey LaJoie (P-8), while Regular Season Champ, Tyler Reddick struggled home with a P-27 finish.
Ty Gibbs and Chase Briscoe now sit on the Bubble to advance to the Round of Twelve. Denny Hamlin (-6), Brad Keselowski(-12), Martin Truex, Jr. (-14) and Harrison Burton (-20) are on the outside looking in going into the bullring known as Thunder Valley for 500 wild-card laps, where anything can happen.
Going into the race, Goodyear announced they were bringing a new tire that had significantly more fall off during a run than previous versions. That, coupled with the reconfigured rumble strips plus the increased pressure from being a Playoff race was hoped to improve action there. The race had a great finish between two non-Playoff drivers who raced each other respectably (masterfully called by Leigh Diffey), multiple incidents in a troublesome Turn 2 and some tire strategy in play, Ross Chastain demonstrated clean air made up for any tire fall off brought by Goodyear. The rumble strip reconfigure may have helped reduce the shock to the drivers but did little to change the way the track drove. As a result, the race produced 2421 Green Flag Passes and 504 Quality Passes (P1-P15), which was up from 1479 GFPs from last year but fell short of the 3141 GFPs in the first GEN-7 race here in 2022.
Below is the Passing Breakdown for this year’s Go Bowling at the Glen –
Although the race was run in spectacular weather, had a favorable position in Playoff schedule and shook up the Playoff standings, to date no ninth grandstand sellout in a row has been announced. The race did have the highest motorsports TV ratings for the weekend at 1.809 Million viewers-up 0.509 Million viewers from the Kansas race that occupied this slot in the 2023 season, but was down 0.501 Million viewers from last season’s Regular season race at the Glen. Considering this was opening weekend for the NFL, maybe next year’s return to the Regular Season will be more favorable for the Glen’s attendance and viewership.
Now it’s on to Round 1-Race 3 at Bristol, Baby… aka Fr’istol. This Round’s cutoff race promises to be another wild card. Goodyear is bringing the same tire from the spring that produced all kinds of records including 26 Racing Lead Changes. Only Joey Logano is locked in with the Playoff’s “Win and You’re In” format and with the non-Playoff Drivers showing they are not scared to mix it up for the win, there could be 15 Drivers looking for a “Good Points Day” in hopes of advancing. Bristol can produce some rough and tumble races and with things happening so fast there, a driver could be sitting pretty one second and find himself in someone else’s mess and their day done the next. The broadcast partners will be tracking all the possibilities, so whatever you do, don’t make a drinking game out of “If the race ended now…” or you might not be around to see the finish.
Who will win? Who will advance? Who will be eliminated? What will the tires do? Lots of questions. Till then… better tune in to find out!
Thunder On… and Stay Safe!
David Nance