Qualifying for Go Bowling At The Glen
Watkins Glen
Saturday, August 3 6:40 pm ET
Group qualifying in two rounds
Round 1: 25 minutes in length, top-12 advance
Round 2: 10 minutes in length to set pole
Items of Note:
- Group qualifying adds the challenge of finding a clean gap to get a run in even with 25 minutes in the first round.
- It takes more than a minute to run a warm-up lap and then more than a minute to run a qualifying run.
- This is an impound race meaning no one will be able to work on the cars after qualifying until just before the race tomorrow.
- Seven of the top-12 spots last year had to run two laps in the first session to secure those spots.
- Matt DiBenedetto’s best lap early in the session was right between his two single-lap runs in practice on Saturday.
- Michael McDowell’s first lap time of 1:10.55 was .15 seconds slower than his best time in practice.
- Erik Jones blew a right-front tire after locking up the car in a corner but didn’t record a full lap before it happened
- Update: Jones didn’t record a lap so he can replace the tire and qualify like normal and will count that spot unless they fail inspection Sunday morning.
- Other teams are adjusting the brake biases in the car a bit after Jones blew the tire in the first turn.
- Austin Dillon locked up the front right tire heading into the Bus Stop
- Chase Elliott’s pole-winning time was two tenths faster than his fastest practice lap in final practice.
Practice To Qualifying Table
Final Practice for Go Bowling At The Glen
Watkins Glen International
Saturday, August 3 1:05 pm ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
Air Temps 81 degrees I Feels like 85 degrees I Wind at 7 mph I 66% Humidity
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized this session
Top-20 Speeds (Single Lap)
Best Lap Averages
Lap averages listed in time (sec.)
Items of Note:
- Ryan Blaney’s 12-car is having the gears changed out a bit after not necessarily liking the ratios during the first session.
- Early in the session, Matt DiBenedetto is leading the speed chart for single-lap speed.
- Alex Bowman says the car doesn’t feel as good in the esses right now as it did earlier and if he has someone in front of him he doesn’t have the braking power he wants through the bus stop.
- Kyle Larson had an issue getting into Turn 1 and said he felt like it was down on the right front and he wound up hopping the curb into the runoff area.
- Jimmie Johnson says the car still feels a bit snug through the esses and the bus stop section.
- Kurt Busch is looking for his car to turn better and loosen up the rear a touch halfway through practice.
- Teams are doing pit road stops to make sure they are set for Sunday since the pit road is reverse of normal pit roads.
- The end of pit road can cause pit road speeding penalties because there is a 20-30 foot decline starting with the last few pit stalls and going to the speed line.
- Alex Bowman is having some issues with brakes this session where the pedal keeps getting longer for him to be able to apply the brakes.
- William Byron said he gets loose in Turn 2, tight in Turn 3, and loose in Turn 4 but makes it through the bus stop pretty well.
- Daniel Suarez missed the bus stop after carrying too much speed into it and wound up taking out a cone and driving through the grass a bit.
- Kyle Busch got into Cody Ware with five minutes to go and Ware’s right rear fender got flared out and messed up a bit but relatively no damage to the 18-car.
- Michael McDowell is sitting second on the speed chart for single lap speed with two minutes left in the session.
- Martin Truex Jr is making a mock qualifying run at the very end of this session.
- Chase Elliott went and made a mock qualifying lap at the very end of the session and set the fastest lap of the session by a wide margin.
First Practice for Go Bowling At The Glen
Watkins Glen International
Saturday, August 3 10:30 am ET
50 minutes in length
Weather
Air Temp 78 degrees I Heat Index 82 degrees I Wind blowing at 6 mph
Penalized Drivers
No drivers were penalized for this session
Top-20 Speeds (Single Lap)
Best Lap Averages
Averages listed in lap times (sec.)
Items of Note:
- Matt Tifft slid coming out of the carousel and nearly hit a few other cars including Chase Elliott and Joey Logano but overall no damage was done to any vehicles.
- There are typically four spotters per car on this track simply because of the blind spots throughout the track.
- Tires don’t seem to be wearing terribly quickly as multiple cars put up their fastest laps several laps into a run.
- Kurt Busch said his nose is sliding a bit through some of the turns 20 minutes into practice
- Matt DiBenedetto missed the inner loop or bus stop and locked up the car trying to break and blew up the left front tire.
- Martin Truex Jr. wobbled on the exit of Turn 7 but looks smooth throughout the rest of the lap especially through the inner loop.
- Austin Dillon missed the inner loop on a lap but was able to come to a complete stop on the runoff area like you are supposed in the race.
- Halfway through practice Kyle Larson ran his best lap after 13 on the track in the session total and that put him P11 on the speed charts.
- Jimmie Johnson said his car is better through the esses but he needs better drive off at this point with 20 minutes left in the session.
- Ross Chastain took a Greyhound bus to Eldora from Watkins Glen to race there Thursday night and then rode in the back row of a minivan back from Eldora only to get a flat five miles from Watkins Glen and then had to fix that before getting to the track for practice.
- Alex Bowman said he was having trouble in the Carousel and couldn’t carry much speed through the corner without being able to lose drive off.
- Bubba Wallace has to have a transmission change due to a leak in the rear gear and that breaking the transmission. He’s only put down two laps this session.
- There are some cars that are racing in the last several minutes of the session and seeing how the tires hold up when running in groups.
- Kyle Busch has been the fastest much of practice across multiple metrics. His teammate had the fastest lap for while too.
- William Byron liked his last lap of the session that he ran as a mock qualifying run.
- Alex Bowman and Jimmie Johnson finished the session by doing a mock qualifying run each as well.
- Denny Hamlin’s car really made strides in the second part of the session and especially in the last 10 minutes of the practice and went on a mock qualifying run for his last lap.
- Alex Bowman’s last lap put him at the top of the speed charts on the mock qualifying run with a fully tapped up grill.
- Kyle Larson finished P5 on the speed charts and P6 in the five-lap averages.