DFS NASCAR: Go Bowling at The Glen Practice Notes

Final Practice for Go Bowling at The Glen

Watkins Glen International

Saturday, August 4th 1:00 pm ET

75 minutes in length

Weather

86 degrees I Feels like 90 degrees I Sunny skies

Penalized Drivers

No penalized drivers this session

Top-20 Speeds (one lap)

Best Lap Averages

Items of Note:

• Several drivers early on a working about getting into the braking zone deep so they can defend against passing zones during the race and knowing what their cars have in that respect for the race.
• Kurt Busch struggled in the first practice and had no rear grip at any point so they changed springs and struts and some adjustments during the break between practices to try an improve that issue for his birthday weekend race.
• Spencer Gallagher spun the car off the track in the middle of the bus stop (inner loop) but didn’t hit anything. He is headed to the garage with 1 hour left in practice.
• Joey Logano is driving right over the curbs on the entry and exit of the inner loop even hopping it like a ramp in order to straighten out the turns but it can upset the car in a negative way when you use too much curb.
• Clint Bowyer car started to smoke because of a leaky o-ring in the new transmission but then on a second run he was really loose because they forgot to reset the track bar to where it was.
• Erik Jones got loose as he tried whoa up going into Turn 1 but simply went slightly into the runoff area.
• While showing a breakdown of how three drivers ran their laps around Watkins Glen it showed that Denny Hamlin had a better car getting into corner entry and holding steady through the corner compared to others.
• Jimmie Johnson is having issues with long-run speed this week and keeping lap times consistent. Chad Knaus wants him to work on the bus stop area to pick up a few tenths there. He hasn’t finished better than 11th in the last five road races.
• Hitting the curbs in the esses can shoot you into the guard rails while hitting them elsewhere can help you arc the turn better so the drivers need to know where to avoid the curbs throughout the lap.
• Alex Bowman was losing turn and freeing up as the run went on in the first practice so they made some adjustments but so far the adjustments haven’t helped as much as he’d like.
• Kyle Busch is showing more consistent long-run speed compared to Joey Logano this practice even on older tires his lap times hold pretty close to even and even get faster for a few with 30 minutes left in practice.
• Ryan Newman let Kyle Larson drive past him in around to follow him around for a lap to see how they compare in speed and line.
• Aric Almirola says that road course racing is his achilles heel but he has put in a lot of time on the simulator and ran the K&N race to improve. The car was getting looser on the last run and they made adjustments to tighten it up and it worked given he ran the second fastest time so far this session with 21 minutes left.
• In the waning moments of practice, Chase Elliott moved to the top of the list on single-lap speed and after five to 10 laps he’s not far behind Kyle Busch in speed.
• Aric Almirola said his car is better in qualifying trim but needs to find more balance in race trim to improve for the race.

Openning Practice Go Bowling at The Glen

Watkins Glen International

Saturday, August 4th 9:05 am ET

90 minutes in length

Weather

80 degrees I Feels like 85 I 71% Humidity

Penalized Drivers

No driver was penalized this session

Top-20 Speeds (one lap)

Best Lap Averages

Items of Note:

• There is 80 feet of elevation change through the esses (Turns 2, 3, 4) and the car can get loose aero wise at the top of Turn 3.
• The inner loop or bus stop is a tricky spot to handle and keep your track position and if you can’t handle it right it can mess up your entire lap.
• The carousel is a turn that allows for multiple lines to be taken through it in order to set you up for the long run into Turn 6.
• AJ Allmendinger is going in with a different mentality this race and just hoping for a nice top-five finish, but he does have better history here than he does at Sonoma.
• Erik Jones ran the K&N race on Friday and drove from the back of the pack to the front before having a pit road penalty but did get great experience
• There is very little tire fall off between laps here and early in practice several cars have actually run faster laps later in the run than on brand new sticker tires.
• Kyle Larson and William Byron are among the few Cup drivers that are running the Xfinity series race here later on Saturday.
• If you miss the entrance into the bus stop you have to come to a complete stop in the runoff area before getting going again and that can cost you quite a bit of track position both right away and as you still come up to full running speed during the rest of the lap.
• With 55 minutes left in practice William Byron got loose in the esses and he managed to save it from going off track despite going sideways through the turn.
• The cars have rain tires on this week and can run in the rain iff necessary. They also have a wiper up on the middle of the windshield, though that’s mostly for downforce purposes.
• The weather at this practice is very similar to the weather for the race on Sunday
• Denny Hamlin held the fastest lap for nearly the first half of practice until Kyle Busch took that over with a sub 1:11 lap with 45 minutes left in the session.
• Chase Elliott likes his car for the most part but did say the car was really light over the right rear through the esses and so they will have to work on that with brakes and tightening it up.
• Ross Chastain drove the car off the track in Turn 6 but didn’t hit a wall or even the grass, but he’s been having trouble several time in the turns and keeping it in the groove or keeping it from wheel hopping.
• With 38 minutes to go in practice Denny Hamlin brushed the wall coming out of Turn 7 but only minor damage. He is now taking the chance to go through the inspection system to see where they stand right now.
• Inspection for the race teams will happen at 11am ET on Sunday morning before the race instead of after qualifying on Saturday night.
• Chase Elliott still has issues in the inner loop with the splitter getting way off the ground and it rolling over the rear wheels indicating the springs in the back are too soft.
• Several drivers that need to win to make the playoffs have been running in the top-10 most of the practice like Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray, Daniel Suarez, and AJ Allmendinger.
• AJ Allmendinger says his car has a great platform to build off of but the car builds free as the run keeps going but that’s the only issue he has at the moment.
• Ryan Newman hit the guard rail in Turn 3 with 28 minutes and damaged the right rear of his car to a degree they will have repair quite a bit in that corner. There was also a red flag brought out to clean up fluids on the track
• Michael McDowell has won a road race at Road America in a lower series and has been an instructor for an elite driving school on a road course giving him a good chance to compete this weekend better than at ovals.
• Ryan Newman has been happy with his car so far and simply drove it in too hard into the beginning of the esses and was mainly working on balancing and collaborating his car to this point. It appears to be simply cosmetic damage to his car with 20 minutes left in the session.
• Martin Truex Jr., Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer among the drivers without the windshield wiper on the car in this practice which is interesting because of the added downforce and aero help the windshield wiper gives the car.
• Bubba Wallace ran the K&N race on Friday and finished sixth. He isn’t really very sore after his big wreck at Pocono last week he said.
• With less than two minutes left in the session, Chase Elliott just completed his sixth lap this session while Kyle Busch and Joey Logano have run 19 and 17 laps each. On his seventh lap, Elliott overran the bus stop and is coming back to the garage to end this session.
• Denny Hamlin is making a transmission change to his car following this practice.
• Kevin Harvick is not among the drivers with the fastest average lap speed overall this session.
• Erik Jones made a Q trim run late in practice to see what he needed out of it and his Q trim mock put him tops on the board.
• The track got slicker as practice continued and by the end several cars were sliding the esses a bit.
• There was a vibration in the Clint Bowyer car towards the end of practice that will need to get adjusted for next session.