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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Will Glen Be Sonoma Repeat?
Sunday's race at Watkins Glen could be a chaotic affair, much like the road-course event at Infineon Raceway in June...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted August 03, 2010   Charlotte, NC
The Watkins Glen road course tends to breed its share of close-quarters racing. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The second and final road-course race of the NASCAR Sprint Cup season will help set the field for the Chase for the Sprint Cup and probably will set up some mad scrambles similar to those that were catalogued in June at Infineon Raceway.

The difference at Watkins Glen International Sunday is that the racing is faster. Infineon is the more technical of the two courses, and it saw a rash of contact before Jimmie Johnson emerged as the Toyota/Save Mart 350 winner.

“The road courses have become more like short courses, but I don’t think it’ll be as bad as Sonoma just because there is more room to race,” Kevin Harvick said. “It’s obviously a lot faster. But there will definitely be bent doors and bumpers just because of how close the competition has become at the road courses with the double-file restarts. That’s usually what causes most of the contact.”

Denny Hamlin also made the short-track comparison.

“It drives more like an intermediate short track versus Sonoma, where Sonoma is way more technical of a road course than what Watkins Glen is,” he said. “Watkins Glen has so much more speed. Aerodynamics comes into play a lot more than what it does at Sonoma, so track position is big anywhere, but it’s probably bigger at Watkins Glen versus Sonoma.”

Tony Stewart, five times a winner at the Glen, said he expects a calmer race at the 2.45-mile track.

“Just the overall speed of the track is a lot greater,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll see near as much contact as what we saw at Sonoma. At Sonoma it just seems to get worse every time we go there. It seems like at the Glen you’re running a lot faster and the guys don’t want to put themselves in that position.”
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is set for a return to Watkins Glen this weekend. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Although the changes aren’t likely to have a dramatic impact on competition, the track Cup drivers will compete on this weekend has been upgraded from 2009 after a couple of major incidents in last year’s race.

The tire barriers that lined the inside of the Inner Loop have been replaced with a concrete wall and SAFER barrier. Tire barriers and guard rail in the Carousel area also have been removed, and a paved runoff area has been added.

Jeff Gordon, who was involved in one of the violent-impact crashes in last year’s race, praised the improvements.

“They installed some SAFER barriers, and they spent a ton of money trying to make the racing safer,” he said. “They should be applauded for that. That doesn’t put a single person in the grandstand. They don’t get a dime back for that investment, and all those changes are made for one reason and that was safety.

“They took those gravel traps out [at the Inner Loop], and that will have an impact on the race because that’s less cautions. Every race you’re having to pull people out of that thing, and this year you’re not going to have that, so that’s potential for less cautions, which impacts the race because of fuel mileage.

“There everybody tries to guess how many caution laps there’s going to be and then work the race backwards. People try to get on pit road early, so that’s going to have a pretty major impact on the way the race is run, I think.”

Two practice rounds are scheduled at the track Friday. Qualifying is scheduled for Saturday.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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