A frustrating afternoon for playoff drivers Sunday at Watkins Glen International gave way to a fantastic finish for Chris Buescher, who secured his sixth career NASCAR Cup Series victory with a pass three turns shy of the finish line.
The first playoff race in the 2.45-mile road course’s 41-race Cup history went to overtime after a crash in Turn 2 on lap 87 impacted playoff drivers Tyler Reddick and Martin Truex Jr., along with Kyle Busch.
On the first of two OT laps, Shane van Gisbergen took advantage of the restart to overtake Buescher for the lead with an inside move.
A rare mistake from van Gisbergen, whose car got loose going through the Inner Loop, opened the door for Buescher on the final lap. After a slight nudge, Buescher got by van Gisbergen on the inside through Turn 5.
More: Connor Zilisch claims Watkins Glen victory in first NASCAR Xfinity Series race
More: Watkins Glen names new building after former president John Saunders, a Corning native
Buescher, 31, held on to win by just under a second in the RFK Racing No. 17 Ford after starting 24th. Van Gisbergen settled for second, Carson Hocevar finished third, pole-sitter Ross Chastain fourth and Zane Smith fifth.
Chase Briscoe had the best finish among the 16 playoff drivers in the 38-car field, placing sixth. He entered the race last in playoff points.
Most playoff drivers ran into an issue of some kind, whether it be a crash or mechanical problem.
Watkins Glen is the second race of three in the first round of the 10-race Cup Series playoffs. The field will be trimmed to 12 drivers after next week’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway. Joey Logano has secured one of those 12 spots thanks to his win last week at Atlanta.
The rest of the playoff field had a chance to join Logano with a win, but Buescher took a rewarding first road-course win and his first anywhere in the series this season.
“We came here to be spoiler. We’re going to do that,” said Buescher, a native of Prosper, Texas. “We would have liked to have won a couple of weeks ago, but this is huge. Such a big win for us. Everybody at RFK has worked so hard. To finally get a road-course win ‒ we’ve been so close so many times ‒ to finally pull that off is fantastic.”
Check for more later on the race.
Follow Andrew Legare on Twitter: @SGAndrewLegare. You can also reach him at alegare@gannett.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: How Chris Buescher won the Go Bowling at The Glen at Watkins Glen
Read the full article here
