NASCAR at Watkins Glen: Preview and Prediction for the Cheez-It 355

Chris Buescher’s win in the Pennsylvania 400 puts the pressure on several of the Chase for the Sprint Cup bubble teams, Buescher’s No. 34 team being one of them.

Buescher threw the entire picture into upheaval. When wild cards like Buescher crash Victory Lane, the margin for error is about the width of a proton.

The Sprint Cup Series now heads to Watkins-Glen for the second and final road-course race of the season. These races, like plate races and bullrings, don’t play favorites. This track will provide opportunity for drivers like A.J. Allmendinger, whose only win came at this track in 2014, to make their case for the Chase.

Many drivers like Chase Elliott, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson are in danger of missing the playoffs because of drivers like Buescher and maybe a new winner this week, perhaps Allmendinger.

If that’s the case, the final month of the regular season will make the Thunderdome look like a McDonald’s Play Place.

So that’s where we’re at as we look ahead to the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen.

By the Numbers: Watkins Glen International

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The Cheez-It 355

Place: Watkins Glen International

Date: Sunday, August 7

TV Coverage: 2:46 p.m. ET, NBCSN

Distance: 355 km, 90 laps

Defending Champion: Joey Logano

The Chase Grid

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1. Brad Keselowski

2. Kyle Busch

3. Carl Edwards

4. Jimmie Johnson

5. Matt Kenseth

6. Kevin Harvick

7. Kurt Busch

8. Joey Logano

9. Martin Truex Jr.

10. Denny Hamlin

11. Tony Stewart

12. Austin Dillon

13. Ryan Newman

14. Chase Elliott

15. Jamie McMurray

16. Kyle Larson

Bold indicates race winner.

The Chase Bubble Watch

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Austin Dillon, +61

Ryan Newman, +49

Chase Elliott, +45

Jamie McMurray, +29

Kyle Larson, +20

---

Kasey Kahne, -20

Trevor Bayne, -28

Ryan Blaney, -28

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., -36

Dale Earnhardt Jr., -47

A.J. Allmendinger, -59

Biggest Storyline: Chris Buescher Guns for 30th

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This Chris Buescher thing is what the end of the long NASCAR calendar needs, seasoning to an at-times flavorless dish.

For all the blandness that was the Brickyard 400, we got the Penn 400 with its weather, split strategies and a rookie winner from out of the clouds.

"It was stressful,” Buescher said on NASCAR.com. “I tried not to get my hopes up because I know how these things can play out. Mother Nature can be really nice sometimes and really mean. If that sun would have come out, it would have changed our whole day."

And by change, he meant resume his regularly scheduled finish in the back quarter of the pack.

Now his eyes are set on the top 30. Buescher sits six points back of David Ragan in 30th and 35 points back of Landon Cassill in 29th.

So Buescher rages in a five-race duel against Ragan for a bid in the Chase where maybe Buescher will be the only rookie. Imagine that.

Ragan and Buescher have approximately the same average finish this year, 27.6 and 27.8 respectively.

Over the next five races, Buescher needs to finish 1.2 spots ahead of Ragan on average. Buescher’s no lock, but his pit box will be eyeing Ragan’s spot on the race track each lap for the rest of the season so the No. 34 car knows exactly what to do and when.

Biggest Storyline: Will We See Another Wild-Card Winner?

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Looking at you, Allmendinger.

The beauty of tracks such as WGI or Bristol Motor Speedway mean that the tenured elite aren’t guaranteed a win. Let’s face it. If we’re dealing with a 1.5-mile track with this latest aero package, Joe Gibbs Racing has a 1-of-3 chance at winning*.

Something in that Finger Lakes and Sonoma air (Is it the wine? Must be the wine.) inflates Allmendinger’s stature from pint-sized mid-packer to dragon slayer.

Allmendinger drives out of his shoes at The Glen. His average finish is 10.1, the only track he improves on his starting position. His other average finishes, even those at Sonoma, aren’t even in the same orbit as Watkins Glen.

In a recent test at The Glen, Allmendinger said afterward:

"

These repaves have a lot of grip in them, but when they're completely green and there's not a lot of rubber on it, it takes a while to get the grip back on the race track. Right now it's really slick and it's hard to find the set up. But, I think it will change a lot over the next day and a half as we put more rubber down.

"

Allmendinger knows this is his chance. At 59 points below the cutline, this is his season.

*: This isn’t just a hunch. About 12 cars can win week to week. JGR has four of those 12 cars hence a solid 1-of-3 chance of winning.

Biggest Storylines: Should He Stay or Should He Go Now?

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It appears, though as of yet there is no confirmation, that Jeff Gordon will continue driving the No. 88 Chevy instead of Dale Earnhardt Jr. indefinitely.

Earnhardt gave an update on his condition, and it doesn’t look promising, at least not in the short term. Earnhardt said on his podcast (h/t NASCAR.com).

"

The balance is up and down The main issue that I have is called gaze stability. That's the main problem and that is, what I believe, is tied to the balance. ... The problem is with my eye being able to fix on an object from a great distance. That's the problem, when I move my head, I lose the object that I'm trying to target.

"

Imagine that at 200 miles per hour.

So Gordon has said he’ll substitute for Earnhardt while always frosting his comments with the hope that Junior will return and relieve him of this duty.

Gordon said on USA Today:

"

I am looking at this as a very temporary thing. I’m really more excited right now about my engagement at Hendrick Motorsports and helping Rick and (general manager) Doug Duchardt and (vice president of competition) Ken Howes and (president) Marshall Carlson and everybody there trying to find out where we can be better, how we can be more competitive and that role in those meetings more so than driving the race car.  But, being in the race car does help me do a better job with that as well.

"

It’s likely that Gordon’s sole purpose is to keep eyeballs on the No. 88 car in ways Alex Bowman never could.

If you can’t have NASCAR’s most popular driver in the car, you may as well have an all-time, top-five great occupying the driver’s seat to appease Nationwide, Axalta and Diet Mountain Dew.

Dark-Horse Pick: Kyle Larson

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Kyle Larson drives with swagger now. And with an average finish of 8.0 at The Glen in two races, what’s not to like?

There’s a certain air of desperation to the No. 42 team as well. With a possible threat of rain looming over Pocono this past week, Larson and Austin Dillon drag raced for the lead, for a possible first-career win and a certain berth in this year’s Chase.

The duel slowed them down such that Joey Logano zipped right past with what must have been the snicker to end all snickers.

Larson, as it stands, bounces on the edge of this Chase bubble. The second Buescher hits No. 30 in the standings Larson will slide off the bubble and into the marshes.

That No. 42 car has shown glimpses of brilliance this year, and he’ll need a win or a top five to keep his first-ever Chase bid alive for at least another week.

And the Winner Is...AJ Allmendinger

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Thirty-five out of 36 races, Allmendinger would be a dark horse at best and a long shot the rest.

But at The Glen? Allmendinger becomes Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson. He becomes something else, which is to say a monster, formidable, a favorite.

His average finish puts him right in the thick of contention. He has won here in the past, and that confidence will carry him to and through the top 10. The real question is whether the entire team rise up to the moment.

An errant pit stop late in the Sonoma race slayed the No. 47 team’s chances at victory.

This is it. The Glen is his final chance to make the playoffs. All hands on deck.