AJ Allmendinger: He won his first Sprint Cup race in Watkins Glen last year, boosting his team into the Chase. AJ Allmendinger is perhaps one of the best in NASCAR on road courses, and last season qualified for one of the final spots in “The Chase” by winning the Cheez-It 355.
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The JTG Daugherty Racing driver, who also claimed pole at Sonoma in June, had set the pace in the first round of qualifying by 0.229 seconds from Kevin Harvick. He turned a fast lap of 127.839 miles per hour to edge Martin Truex Jr. for the top spot.
“Hopefully, we’re reliving final yr”, Allmendinger stated Saturday after placing his No. 47 JTG/Daugherty Chevrolet on the pole for in the present day’s Cheez-It 355 at Watkins Glen Worldwide.
Mike Hutton – Tony Stewart – He has five wins at the track plus the team has shown improvement the last two weeks with solid practice and qualifying efforts, even if race results haven’t followed. Joey Logano is now second, trailing by 46 points, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson trail by 63, and 67, respectively. I didn’t get a clean lap and couldn’t get everything out of it. We’ll have our work cut out.
“The thing I’ve learned about the Sprint Cup Series is it doesn’t matter whether somebody needs a win or not”, Allmendinger said.
Joey Logano (12) and Brad Keselowski (22) race for the lead during the NASCAR Xfinity series auto race at Watkins Glen worldwide, Saturday, August 8, 2015, in Watkins Glen, New York. Smith, now 57 points behind Buescher, finished 20 in the race after the incident. It’s so critical around here (to start up front). “It’s totally my fault”, Dillon said before the confrontation with Smith. “He had a little bit of trouble himself on pit road and drove through the field so quickly that he was running lap times I think three or four tenths faster than I was when we were leading and it was just all I could do to really keep up with him there at the end”.
Buescher extended his series lead to 24 points over Dillon and seventh-place finisher Chase Elliott. “Early on, I just remember wanting to take on every challenge as a team, to improve to be a bigger threat to the championship”.
It was a challenging day for Elliott. He was spun out by Dillon on a restart midway through the race and with 16 laps to go skidded into the Armco barrier that lines the track after tight racing with Brendan Gaughan. “The strength that Marcos had at this race track, the aggressiveness and putting himself in the right place at the right time to be able to win these races was always pretty neat to see”.
Time of Race: 2 Hrs, 23 Mins, 31 Secs. “They do an excellent job”.
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Kei Kamara scored twice in the second half to regain the MLS goals lead in the Columbus Crew’s 2-1 comeback victory over the Colorado Rapids.
