By the midpoint of the race, Logano, Keselowski and Larson were running 1-2-3 and during a round of pit stops Larson pitted from the lead. Kyle Busch reassumed the lead when she pitted on Lap 44.
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“I finally have won at all the race tracks so it’s a great accomplishment for us”, said Hamlin, who raced the whole day with back problems.
“I saw them shoot forward and lunge into the corner and I knew there was no possible way to get out with any sensible speed”, Hamlin said. “I just felt like this (race) has always trended to be a lot of cautions at the end, and I felt confident that we were going to get the caution laps that we needed to make it on fuel, and we did”.
Hamlin led the final ten laps after passing Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch to take the lead on a restart on lap 81. Truex tried to make a late move on Hamlin but spun out when Keselowski hit him from behind.
2015 Cheez-It 355 at The Glen victor Joey Logano finished in second place. Hamlin notched a mistake-free final lap, after missing the final turn at Sonoma Raceway in June and allowing Tony Stewart to win there.
Keselowski, who never led but ran second for almost half the race, challenged Logano on the restart and dogged him as the laps wound down, trying to pressure him into a mistake. Earnhardt is recovering from a concussion and will miss at least two more races.
It didn’t help that the race had two stoppages for a total of 30 minutes.
DUST-UP II: A.J. Allmendinger got into the back of Kyle Larson coming toward the finish line, booting Larson hard into the inside wall. He’s now only three points outside the top 30 where he needs to be when the regular season ends in order for his win last week at Pocono to get him into the playoffs. “I went high and the 78 went high, and by then, I was already deep in the corner and got into him and turned him”.
“First of all, it’s great to be able to come to NY and Watkins Glen and race”, Gibbs said. We executed on pit road and didn’t make any mistakes. The big one came when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. lost control of his No. 17 Ford coming out of the sweeping right-hander and skidded across the track.
The number 11 auto owned by Joe Gibbs Racing led all of the final ten laps.
The speed limit at Watkins Glen was set to 40 miles per hour with a 5 miles per hour cushion. He rallied from a penalty, while Ragan finished 33rd. The next caution at lap 57 was for Carl Edwards, David Ragan, Clint Bowyer and Alex Kennedy. You can get live scoring all weekend at NASCAR’s Race Center.
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In addition, the track also announced plans for a new viewing deck outside the Esses (turns 2-4) in 2017. If his No. 11 team can continue to build the momentum in upcoming races at Bristol Motor Speedway and Michigan International Speedway, they could join teammates Busch, Edwards and Kenseth as championship threats when the Chase arrives in September.
