http://www.nascar.com
Glen's Turn 1 treacherous even before restart rule
- Many races have been won and lost in track's 1`st turn
- Kevin Harvick and Juan Montoya know how tough Turn 1 can be (2007).
There's a lot of crazy stuff that happens down in Turn 1, and I guarantee that if you're leading the race here this weekend, the last thing you're going to want to see is a caution.
Jeff Gordon
"Leaders, drivers in general, it's tough to hit your marks lap after lap,"
Kurt Busch said, "because you're going downhill, and the car is right on that ragged edge of spinning out each time."
And now, add the element of double-file restarts to the mix.
"I think it's going to be really, really intense here,"
Gordon said.
With the paved runoff area, Turn 1 is now easily wide enough to accommodate more than one vehicle. Unlike the other Cup road course,
Infineon Raceway -- where cars are almost forced into a single file --
Watkins Glen is wide enough in many places to accommodate side-by-side racing.
"This track is very conducive to having double-file restarts and not getting people in trouble trying to get filed down to one lane,"
said Stewart, a 4-time winner at Watkins Glen. "So I think it should make it exciting for this weekend. I think this will be a perfect place for it."
"Some guys will misjudge the braking and overshoot it, and other guys will be more aggressive and take it 3-wide and 4-wide,"
said Gordon, who has won 4 times here.
The hairy nature of Monday's race at Pocono has drivers at Watkins Glen hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.
Carl Edwards was equally as emphatic. "Last week was awful," he said.
Those double-file restarts seem to breed more restarts.
I hope it doesn't, but it could, and we're prepared for that.
It's on to the road course at Watkins Glen, N.Y., which begs the question -- which road layout is better,
Watkins or Infineon Raceway?
Montoya mania
Mike Bell says this Watkins Glen is the place Juan Montoya breaks through and captures his 1`st win of 2009.
- Watkins is a superspeedway with a few kinks thrown in. It's spectacularly fast. It's a whole different animal, and a much better race track, I think.
- Glen over Sonoma, I think the Glen is more of a team track whereas Sonoma is more in the drivers' hands.
And do any of the ringers stand a chance this week?
- This one could come down to 2 former ringers, though, in Montoya and Marcos Ambrose.
- Ambrose was 3`rd there last year and JPM is always a threat on a road course.
- Ambrose and Montoya really went at it in Sonoma.
- They'll be in the mix at the front again at The Glen.
Ambrose's transformation from outsider to contender
Pitting on opposite side adds to race excitement
By the Numbers: The Glen
- Kyle Busch only Chase bubble driver with Glen victory
- Michael Waltrip has more starts than any other driver at Watkins Glen but he won't be on the track this weekend.
Watkins Glen has an interesting history.
The track has been with NASCAR since 1957, making it the 4`th-oldest track on the schedule, but it's only seen 26 races in its history.
After Buck Baker won the inaugural race at The Glen, it took 7 years for the series to return.
The track hosted just 2 races, one in 1964 and one in 1965, and then didn't see the Cup Series for 2 decades, until it finally came back for good in 1986.
The track is the 5`th-longest on the Cup Series schedule,
but ironically hosts the 2`nd-shortest race of the year.
Three (3) drivers are heads-and-tails above the rest of the field at Watkins Glen.
Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon lead all drivers with 4 wins.
Right behind those 2 is Mark Martin with 3 wins, but he is the track leader with 12 top-5s and 16 top-10s in 19 races.
INSIDE THE DATA
Shortest races, in length, on the Cup Series schedule
Track - Races - Miles - Laps
Infineon Raceway - 1 - 219.0 - 110
Watkins Glen International - 1 - 220.5 - 90
Martinsville Speedway - 2 - 263.0 - 500
Bristol Motor Speedway - 2 - 266.5 - 500
Richmond International Raceway - 2 - 300.0 - 400
Phoenix International Raceway - 2 - 312.0 - 312
New Hampshire Motor Speedway - 1 - 317.4 - 300
New Hampshire Motor Speedway - 1 - 318.5 - 301
3 = Number of drivers with multiple starts at Watkins Glen who average a top-10 finish at the track:
Tony Stewart (5.7), Denny Hamlin (6.7) and Mark Martin (6.9).
5 = Tony Stewart has 5 consecutive top-2 finishes at Watkins Glen.
He won in 2004, 2005 and 2007 and finished 2`nd in 2006 and 2008.
6 = Number of drivers who won a race last season still looking for their 1`st win of 2009:
Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards and Ryan Newman.
7 = Number of road-course ringers entered in Sunday's race - will look to be the 1`st non-Cup regular since
Mark Donahue in 1973 to win a road-course event.
10.0 = Average green flag run, in laps, at Watkins Glen in the last 8 races.
12 = Denny Hamlin was the 12th different driver to win a Cup Series race this season, tying the record set in 2008 for number of drivers to win a race.
20.1 = Average finish for
Jeff Gordon in the last 7 races at Watkins Glen.
Since his last win in 2001, Gordon has just 1 top-10 finish and 4 finishes of 20th or worse.
22 = Michael Waltrip is the all-time starts leader at Watkins Glen with 22 but will not race this weekend, giving the seat of the No. 55 to Patrick Carpentier.
Ringers don't have much success at Watkins Glen
- Fellows best of the bunch, but no ringer has a victory
- In 11 Cup starts at Watkins Glen, Ron Fellows has 3 top-5s, including two 2`nds.
- To say Fellows knows his way around Watkins Glen would be like saying Dale Earnhardt could be a little intimidating at times.
- The 49-year-old native of Toronto has 4 Nationwide Series victories, 3 of those coming at the Glen.
- In 1999, Fellows led three laps and finished 2`nd to Jeff Gordon.
2004, when qualifying was rained out and he was forced to start last in a field of 43.
But using every bit of his experience and methodically working his way through the field, Fellows finished 2`nd to Tony Stewart, who was battling stomach cramps.
That was the race in which Sterling Marlin referred to Greg Biffle as "that bug-eyed dummy" after the two got together on the track.
And it was Jeff Burton's final race for Jack Roush.
He moved to Richard Childress' No. 30 at Michigan,
and a young driver by the name of Carl Edwards took control of the No. 99 Ford.
2005 - One year later, Boris Said and Scott Pruett scored top-5 finishes as Stewart repeated as winner.
Pruett finished 6`th in 2006 and Fellows came in 4`th in 2007, but neither led a lap.
Two drivers with extensive road-course experience --
Marcos Ambrose and Juan Montoya -- recorded top-5 finishes in last year's race.
So back to the original question: Can a ringer win? It's not likely.
Pitting on opposite side adds to race excitement
- Teams don't spend too much time worrying about change
- A race can be lost with one mistake on the unique Watkins Glen pit road.
- One axiom in racing is that you can't win a race on the first lap, but you can lose it.
- You can lose one of these races by speeding, sliding through the box or pinning the guys too close to the pit wall
- Make sure I'm under the speed limit, make sure I just ease into that box.
- Having everything reversed can make for some unusual situations for pit stop strategy.
- Some teams will change their complete pit crews, from front to rear
Ambrose's transformation from outsider to contender
- Aussie made first strides a year ago at Watkins Glen
- Marcos Ambrose has two top-5s and 5 top-10s is his first full season in the Cup Series.
This event last year was my breakout race, and let everybody know that I was a serious driver and that I deserved to have a chance. And here I am 12 months later making the most of that.
I feel like I'm part of the series. I feel like I'm worthy to be in the Cup garage.
Winning the Nationwide event and placing 3`rd in the Sprint Cup race marked the former V-8 Supercar driver as a legitimate threat on road courses
Still, it was a huge boost for the Wood Brothers team, and a clear breakthrough for the driver.
Note: Ambrose led both practices Saturday (2009)
Ambrose is no longer an outsider -- he's a favorite.
It's easy to get carried away with the hype of trying to win the race,
but we've had a really good year so far in the Sprint Cup side
For me, we expect to do well if we finish the race,
but first of all you've got to make it to the finish.
Ambrose gets better of Busch to repeat at The Glen
When Marcos Ambrose and Kyle Busch came to the chicane, or "bus stop," on Lap 64 of Saturday's Zippo 200 at The Glen, Busch stopped -- out of necessity -- and Ambrose didn't.
Busch wasn't happy with the aggressive pass, which forced him to miss the chicane and stop on the track for a 3-second penalty, but he rallied to finish 2`nd, the record 10th consecutive time in a Nationwide race.
Carl Edwards ran 3`rd, after Busch passed him to the outside through Turn 1 in the closing laps.
"I just didn't quite have the top-end speed to make a classic pass on him,"
said Ambrose, "I knew I was going to have to bomb him somewhere to get the win.
He wasn't going to make a mistake on his own. I was going to have to force one on him.
"We're not here to come second. We're here to win, and I had that mind-set all weekend." said Ambrose, who won in his only start in the series this year.
Busch said he would not have tried the winning move Ambrose made.
I don't think it was a fair move. It won him the race. He had to do something.
Ambrose countered by pointing out that he hadn't touched Busch's No. 18 Toyota.
Edwards saw nothing wrong with Ambrose's pass.
"Marcos knows more about road racing than all of us,"
Edwards said.
"I wasn't happy that he moved me out of the way into [Turn] 1 earlier [after a restart on Lap 48], but he apologized for it and I believe him.
Ambrose's pass wasn't the only controversy of the afternoon.
Robby Gordon and Joey Logano repeatedly got together on the track.
"You can't fix stupid," Logano said of Gordon's aggression. "It's forever."
Notes:
- Ambrose led a race-high 26 laps, edging Edwards by one.
- Busch led once for 15 laps, leading his 19th consecutive Nationwide race.
That tied a record held by Sam Ard. ...
Ambrose has 2 Nationwide wins in 71 starts, and he'll try to keep his 2009 Nationwide record perfect
Aug. 30 at Montreal.