Watkins Glen International has produced some great NASCAR Cup Series finishes over the years, and this past Sunday (Sept. 15) was no different. Chris Buescher made a dramatic last-lap pass on Shane van Gisbergen to win The Go Bowling at The Glen, a consolation prize for the No. 17 team not making the playoffs.
Sunday marked the first time Watkins Glen was a part of the Cup Series playoffs, and numerous playoff drivers had issues that shook things up around the cut line. One playoff driver in particular had a myriad of maladies both on the track and on pit road.
Brad Keselowski and the Terrible, Awful, No Good, Very Bad Day
Brad Keselowski entered Watkins Glen one point below Ty Gibbs for the final spot in the Round of 12. Once the green flag flew in the Finger Lakes of New York, the 2012 Cup Series champion and his No. 6 team did themselves no favors.
In addition to getting embroiled in three on-track incidents, Keselowski was hit with two penalties on pit road.
On the No. 6 RFK Racing team’s first pit stop on lap 17, Keselowski got caught speeding on pit exit, forcing him to start stage two at the tail of the field on a day where green-flag passes were hard to come by for just about everyone.
Fast forwarding to lap 36, Keselowski’s pit crew tripped up by committing an uncontrolled tire violation. This sent the No. 6 Ford to the back of the pack, starting from scratch in terms of track position.
This poor execution on pit stops, plus all the on-track issues, added up to a 26th-place finish for Keselowski, who will head into the Round of 16 cutoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway 12 points below the cut line.
While it’s not quite a must-win situation, Keselowski and the No. 6 crew need to clean up the mistakes and execute well as a team if they wish to see the Round of 12.
Stage Cautions Shape Early Pit Strategy
Ever since the introduction of stage racing and stage cautions in 2017, the complexion of pit strategy at road courses has changed significantly. Whenever the end of a stage is approaching, teams have one of two options: pit and position yourself for the race win, or stay out to rack up stage points.
The pit strategy during the first half of Sunday’s race at The Glen followed this pattern. Before the conclusions of both stage one and two, the majority of teams pitted for tires and fuel.
Meanwhile, smaller groups stayed out for stage points, including several playoff drivers. The top eight finishers from stage one were all playoff drivers, from stage winner Martin Truex Jr. all the way down to Kyle Larson in eighth.
The call to stay out for the stage win proved to be a wise one for Truex, as late-race incidents pushed him back to a 20th-place finish, 14 points below the cut line going to Bristol. Without the stage win, Truex’s bid to continue on in his final Cup Series playoffs would be in even worse shape.
However, no playoff driver played the stay out for stage points strategy better than Chase Briscoe. All told, Briscoe placed third in stage one and seventh in stage two for a combined 12 stage points, part of a sixth-place finish that pushed him above the cut line by six points going to Bristol.
With all this being said, I would like to see NASCAR do away with stage cautions at road courses like they did with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and Watkins Glen in 2023.
I think keeping the race green through the end of stages will encourage more organic racing and a wide variety of pit strategy at road courses. Time will tell if NASCAR opts to make any tweaks to the stage racing format.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The Round of 16 concludes on Saturday, Sept. 21, with the running of the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Bristol is an unpredictable track as it is, but when you make it a cutoff race, the uncertainty gets turned up to another level. Playoff teams around the cut line will look to make strategy calls to maximize points or make a bid for the win depending on their situation.
The unexpected tire fall-off in the spring race at Bristol is another variable that teams will need to think about in their preparation for The World’s Fastest Half-Mile.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.