Nothing Free in Last-Lap ‘Free-For-All’ at The Glen
Nothing Free in Last-Lap ‘Free-For-All’ at The Glen
Office Depot/Mobil 1 Driver Goes from Seventh to 27th in Final Lap
Date: Aug. 15, 2011
Event: Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen (Round 22 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International (2.45-mile, 11-turn road course)
Start/Finish: 7th/27th (Running, completed 92 of 92 laps in a green-white-checkered finish)
Winner: Marcos Ambrose of Richard Petty Motorsports (Ford)
In his seven previous NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, Tony Stewart had finished no worse than seventh – a run that includes four of his five career wins and two second-place finishes at the 2.45-mile, 11-turn road course in upstate New York. And in Monday’s rain-postponed Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen, an eighth straight top-10 finish seemed all but assured.
But when the checkered flag dropped, Stewart crossed the stripe in 27th, his No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Impala the last car on the lead lap. It was Stewart’s worst finish in 13 career Sprint Cup starts at Watkins Glen, and his third-worst finish in 26 career Sprint Cup starts on a road course.
What happened? A green-white-checkered finish set up a last-lap dash that saw the kind of beating and banging most fans associate with short-track races at Martinsville (Tenn.) and Bristol (Tenn.). Instead, plenty of fender rubbing was on hand at The Glen. It led to Stewart spinning in the outer loop, whereupon he was hit by another car as he went around, which pushed him into the inside wall. He managed to re-fire his racecar to finish the race, avoiding a dreaded DNF (Did Not Finish).
“What a free-for-all,” said Stewart as he climbed from his battered and beaten car inside the garage area.
No more words were needed. What appeared to be a surefire top-10 turned into a loss of 20 spots. As a result, Stewart dropped one spot to 10th in the championship standings. He now has 659 points, which puts him 93 points behind new series leader Kyle Busch while giving him a 25-point cushion over 11th-place Clint Bowyer.
His Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) teammate Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 U.S. Army Chevrolet Impala, finished 16th. It was Newman’s fifth top-20 finish in 10 career Sprint Cup starts at Watkins Glen and his fifth straight top-20 finish this season.
With round 22 of 36 complete, Newman continues to lead the SHR duo in the championship point standings. He remained eighth and now has 686 points, 66 markers back of Busch and 52 points ahead of Bowyer.
Marcos Ambrose won the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at The Glen to score his first career Sprint Cup victory in 105 starts. The two-time Australian V8 Supercar champion is no stranger to Watkins Glen, however, as he scored back-to-back-to-back NASCAR Nationwide Series wins at The Glen in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
The race finished under caution with the winner of last Sunday’s race at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, Brad Keselowski, finishing second. Busch, Martin Truex Jr., and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five, while Kevin Harvick, Juan Pablo Montoya, A.J. Allmendinger, Jeff Burton and Jimmie Johnson comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were five caution periods for 14 laps, with 15 drivers failing to finish the 92-lap race, which was extended two laps by the green-white-checkered finish.
The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Aug. 21 Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. The race starts at 1 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at noon.
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