(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden
After each NASCAR race weekend, Motorsports Beat will share a piece breaking down the stories and takeaways from the weekend. This is a report on the August 2021 race weekend at Watkins Glen International.
NASCAR Cup Series
Race: Go Bowling at the Glen
Who Won?
Kyle Larson, after keeping teammate Chase Elliott in his rearview mirror through lapped traffic in the closing laps.
Who Won the Stages?
Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr.
Top Stories
The next step
Kyle Larson made another big step on Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
And no, I’m not just talking about the one to victory lane.
Heading to a track in which his defending NASCAR Cup Series champion teammate, Chase Elliott, has reigned supreme since his breakthrough victory in 2018, Larson held the road course ace off over a lengthy run to the checkered flag to bring home his fifth victory of the 2021 season.
Now before we dump on additional praise, it’s worth noting that a few caveats played into Larson’s survival. Elliott had to start at the tail of the field after a pre-race inspection failure. Had he not flat-spotted his tires in the middle stages of the race, the Georgian also likely would have had a fair crack at his teammate for the win at race’s end.
But luck and variables always play a role in these races. You could make the same statements about rain keeping Larson from toppling Elliott at Circuit of the Americas in May.
Circumstances aside, Larson pulled off another win and a sweep of the “traditional” road courses at Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen. He ended a five-race winless streak, added five more playoff points to his total and capped off a month-long stretch where the Californian also triumphed in the Kings Royal and Prairie Dirt Classic – Crown Jewels races for the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series and Late Model Series, respectively.
And it comes with the Knoxville Nationals just days away.
That race is the key dirt event that Larson is still chasing. He’s won the Chili Bowl Nationals twice and already proven his worth in a sprint car with the Kings Royal triumph a few weeks back. But now Larson’s positioned with all the momentum in the world entering what is essentially the discipline’s Daytona 500.
Even if that doesn’t go to plan, Larson has also made a significant stride in the Cup Series ahead of the first race weekend on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. He’s now tied with Denny Hamlin for the overall points lead, giving Larson a chance to steal the regular season championship away in the final weeks before the playoffs.
The extra points for such a result may not prove critical for Larson – he’s already guaranteed 37 as things stand — but denying a winless Hamlin the 15 playoff points for the title could really hurt the Joe Gibbs Racing star’s playoff odds and help someone like Elliott make a run ahead of him this fall.
For years Larson has been regarded as a top American talent, but now he’s positioning himself to potentially become a NASCAR champion.
Lost opportunity
Chase Elliott made a heroic drive in an atypically short Cup race—seriously, it last just 2 hours, 11 minutes.
But all the defending champ could think about afterward were the few issues that cost him a chance to return to victory lane.
“I made too many mistakes to get the win, unfortunately, and made it too late in the race,” Elliott said before praising his team’s will to fight to the finish.
Elliott has become the road course star of note in recent years, overtaking drivers like Martin Truex Jr. as the de-facto favorite when right turns are added into the fray. Truex also fell short on Sunday, coming home third in a race that left him feeling that his team “just needs to find some more.”
Christopher Bell has also emerged as a road course contender, scoring his first Cup win on the Daytona International Speedway road course in February and even battling with Larson on Sunday before a Lap 55 spin after a run-in with Larson that he said was “extremely frustrating.”
Those two have made strong cases as road course threats, but Elliott is in his own realm. He’s won at every road course the Cup Series has visited outside of Sonoma over the past few seasons, including recent triumphs in debuts at both COTA and Road America.
So when a road course comes around on the schedule, Elliott’s No. 9 team is immediately penciled in as a contender and everyone knows it’s an opportunity for the squad to rack up playoff points that could come in handy this fall. To their credit, the squad has contended in every one of the road course events thus far. But the win rate has slowed ever-so-much, keeping Elliott from taking full advantage of a 2021 schedule that’s filled to the brim with road courses.
Will it matter? Perhaps not. Elliott would likely be quick to point out that the two biggest wins he managed en route to the 2020 title were on traditional ovals in Martinsville Speedway and Phoenix Raceway.
But it does mean Elliott, much like Truex and the other road course aces that have faded slightly before him, is a touch more vulnerable entering the playoffs. Those little mistakes can add up.
Title Matters
In a year filled with multiple winners and unexpected twists, the biggest battle for a regular season triumph may have nothing to do with victory lane.
Denny Hamlin once held a near-insurmountable lead atop the championship standings. He’d failed to bring home a race win during the spring months, but the Virginian was present in the top-five nearly every weekend and even scored a handful of stage wins along the way. This all came as the rest of the field battled through an inconsistent (and therefore surprising) early-season stint, helping Hamlin stand out from the pack even more.
He’s continued to rack up strong runs over the course of the season, but Hamlin has had to deal with an unexpected challenger in Larson. The Hendrick Motorsports newcomer won early at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and then became an unstoppable force for a month between May and June, surging up the standings and within reach of Hamlin’s points lead on the heels of three-consecutive points race wins.
As Hendrick’s reign of terror atop the charts has faded over the summer, Hamlin has been able to stabilize the battle for the championship lead. But Larson has stayed closed, and his Watkins Glen win helped him close up the slim 13-point gap. The pair left New York tied for the points lead, with just three races remaining in the regular season.
Hamlin is prepared for a fight to the finish for the regular season crown.
“It’s going to be a battle all the way to the end, I think,” he said after scoring a top-five at Watkins Glen. “Really proud of our effort today. We passed, had to be the most cars. We were really, really fast all day.”
With no wins to vouch for and a playoff point total less than half of Larson’s current haul even if he wins the regular season title, Hamlin’s necessity for the victory is much higher than his rival’s.
The good news for Hamlin is that his odds of pulling it off may be better than you think. That’s because of one lingering track on the schedule where his resume shines brighter than any other in recent years – the regular season finale at Daytona.
“(Hamlin) is so good at Daytona, too, so it would be nice to get a couple good weeks and get that point lead because I know he’s going to go there, and anything can happen at Daytona,” Larson admitted. “But I know he’s going to go there, and he’s going to get stage points, and he’s going to challenge for the win. I know he’s looking at me as the same.”
“If he could go into Daytona being even or ahead, he’s going to feel like he’s got the advantage. I’d like to have a good couple weeks before we get there and give us a little bit of wiggle room.”
Notes
- Credit to Bell, he fought back from the mid-race spin to score a seventh-place result and reach 10 top-10s on the year. It’s the Oklahoman’s fourth top-10 in a row, during a stretch where his average finish has been a strong 4.75. Let’s see if he can keep that momentum rolling to the postseason.
- What Kyle Busch has done this year isn’t groundbreaking for him – his 11.0 average finish is about on-par with 2016 and ’17 (11.5) and below his two title triumphs (10.8 in 2015, 8.9 in 2019) and his drive as part of the Big 3 in 2018 (8.3). But it’s a full 2.8 positions better than he managed in a disappointing 2020, with just three top fives keeping him from matching that entire season’s mark.
- Chase Briscoe’s shown promising signs on road courses. Sunday’s ninth-place effort was his third top-10 of 2021. They’ve all come on road courses, also including Circuit of the Americas (sixth) and Road America (sixth). Not a bad sign when a road course he won on in the Xfinity Series is next on the schedule.
- Brad Keselowski’s final season with Team Penske could prove to be one of his worst. His 13.6 average finish to date — lowered by Sunday’s 35th-place result — would be the worst season-long effort since his disappointing championship defense in 2013 (14.9) if it holds to season’s end.
- Three drivers are tied for the most top-10s at this stage of the season with 16 top-10 efforts in 23 races. Two of them are points leaders Hamlin and Larson, which should come as no surprise. The third, though? Kevin Harvick. Even in a year where his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team struggles to find pace, they’re collectively finding another way to keep his playoff hopes alive.
- When you’re making limited starts, you search for little improvements. So Kyle Tilley’s 30th-place effort, his best finish in three runs, is a small result for his team to cherish.
- Sunday’s race was easily the shortest time-wise of the 2021 season at just a shade over two hours. Did you notice? Did it bother you? These might be things to ponder as NASCAR and all sporting entities continue to adapt to a changing sports fandom – one filled with many viewers that struggle to sit in front of a TV for longer than the length of a movie (or even a commercial, in some cases).
Results
- Kyle Larson
- Chase Elliott
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Kyle Busch
- Denny Hamlin
- William Byron
- Christopher Bell
- Kevin Harvick
- Chase Briscoe
- Tyler Reddick
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Ross Chastain
- Kurt Busch
- Ryan Blaney
- Austin Dillon
- Aric Almirola
- Chris Buescher
- Cole Custer
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Alex Bowman
- Michael McDowell
- Joey Logano
- Bubba Wallace
- Corey LaJoie
- Ryan Newman
- Anthony Alfredo
- Erik Jones
- Ryan Preece
- Justin Haley
- Kyle Tilley
- Daniel Suarez
- Quin Houff
- Josh Bilicki
- R.C. Enerson
- Brad Keselowski
- Garrett Smithley
- James Davison
Stage 1
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Larson
- Denny Hamlin
- Tyler Reddick
- William Byron
- Kyle Busch
- Alex Bowman
- Chase Elliott
- Austin Dillon
- Erik Jones
Stage 2
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Christopher Bell
- Kevin Harvick
- Kyle Larson
- Chase Briscoe
- Ross Chastain
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Denny Hamlin
- Joey Logano
- Kyle Busch
Next up: The Cup Series returns to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the tour’s first race on the facility’s road course, the Verizon 200 at the Brickyard, on Aug. 15.
NASCAR Xfinity Series
Race: Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey 200
Who Won?
Ty Gibbs, who fended off road course stars AJ Allmendinger and Austin Cindric for the victory.
Who Won the Stages?
Cindric and Allmendinger
Top Stories
A growing resume
What more can be said about Ty Gibbs that hasn’t already been uttered? How many more superlatives and positive notes can be attributed to an 18-year-old that seems poised for a meteoric rise through the NASCAR ranks?
It’s a story almost too good to be true – the grandson of longtime Cup Series team owner Joe Gibbs is quickly emerging as a star while driving for the family team.
He’s enjoying a successful ARCA Menards Series campaign, where he leads rival Corey Heim by two points for the series lead in a season dominated by the pair. But Gibbs’ real claim to fame has come in NASCAR’s second series, where he won on his debut at Daytona International Speedway and has since gone on to triumph two more times.
Now let’s get this out of the way – yes, Gibbs has done this in the best cars. In fact, the prodigy is just one of three drivers in the No. 54 Toyota that have combined for 10 consecutive top-three runs and eight wins dating back to Circuit of the Americas in May.
But to use that to discredit Gibbs’ accomplishments isn’t entirely fair. The two he’s split the success with are victorious Cup Series stars Kyle Busch and Christopher Bell, top-tier drivers he’s managed to match in form. And he’s done so while tallying eight top-fives in 10 total series starts. That ties full-time teammate Daniel Hemric for the most anyone at JGR has earned this year and sits one mark higher than the seven of Harrison Burton and Brandon Jones.
Gibbs has reached the mark in half as many starts while also securing wins that none of the other three have. He’s also ahead of drivers like Noah Gragson, Jeb Burton and Justin Haley in top-fives. Even fellow part-time star Josh Berry only has four top-fives in his 16 starts to date.
In fact, the only drivers with more top-fives than Gibbs are championship hopefuls Austin Cindric, A.J. Allmendinger and Justin Allgaier. Only Busch (five) and Cindric (four) have more wins.
Saturday’s triumph was among the most impressive drives for Gibbs yet. Running on the longtime NASCAR road course, Watkins Glen International, Gibbs found himself contending with Cindric and Allmendinger for the win. Both had much more experience – Allmendinger even has a Cup win at the facility – and they each passed Gibbs on late restarts, But in the end he was able to stay with them and quickly retake the top spot, driving off to a standout win that felt comparable to when a young Dale Earnhardt Jr. beat road course specialist Ron Fellows at the same track in 1999.
“This is just a dream come true to win at Watkins Glen,” Gibbs said of the result. “This is just wonderful, I can’t even believe it.”
That same feeling accompanied his first win on the Daytona International Speedway road course in February – a result that felt like it could be a flash in the pan at the time. Allmendinger and Cindric had wrecked early, hurting their odds and opening the door for a surprise.
But in the months since then, Gibbs has continued to contend and succeed. Him running toward the front has slowly shifted from a surprise to an expectation, regardless of who else is in the field.
Sure, it was still a bit surprising to see him challenging arguably the best two road racers in the series on Saturday. But it didn’t come with any real sense of shock.
That’s just about as much praise as you can offer for an 18-year-old that’s not even running full-time in the NASCAR national series ranks just yet.
Back in Action
Just one month ago, the playoff hopes for JR Motorsports veteran Michael Annett were called into question after he was hastily pulled from a Camping World Truck Series start at Knoxville Raceway. The Iowan then missed the ensuing day’s Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway and was confirmed afterward to require leg surgery ahead of his return, skipping another race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway to focus on his recovery.
Luckily for Annett, this year’s summer Olympic break bought him time to heal. With a couple weeks off and a playoff eligibility waiver already awarded, Annett made his way to Watkins Glen International on Saturday to resume his 2021 campaign.
Was the 2020 Daytona winner feeling 100 percent healthy? Likely not. He was utilizing a cane and walking with a limp.
And yes, his cane is a hockey stick.
Said he found it on Amazon, gave his desired height and is loving “the old man look” in the garage 😂 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/hjGgyHTxiS
— Davey Segal (@DaveyCenter) August 7, 2021
But Annett was healthy enough to be cleared for competition. He stayed out of trouble and put together a quiet 11th-place effort to keep his playoff ambitions intact.
“It’s good to be back in the car, racing with all my guys on this No. 1 Pilot Flying J Spicy Chicken Sandwich Chevrolet,” he said afterward. “I love being here and love the passion they have.
“I gave up 10th at the end because I was trying something with (Sam Mayer). I didn’t have a lot of lateral grip today, so that wasn’t easy, but next week, we’ll get back after it.”
Annett sits 30 points ahead of Riley Herbst for the final playoff position with six regular season races remaining.
Notes
- Ty Gibbs did reach one personal best on Saturday. His 43 laps led were the most he’s managed in a single race thus far.
- His teammate Harrison Burton had one small note to celebrate, even if his expectations may be higher. Burton’s fifth-place finish gave him consecutive top-fives for the first time this year. Four of his seven top-fives have come in the past six races, offering promise that his No. 20 team is improving when it counts in the build to the postseason.
- Speaking of tiny steps to celebrate, Kris Wright topped his 18th-place run on the Daytona road course with a 17th-place effort in Watkins Glen, giving him a new career-best finish.
- Josh Williams snuck out of New York with a 14th-place finish on Saturday, scoring his second top-15 of 2021. The other also came on a road course – a 10th-place effort at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Results
- Ty Gibbs
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Austin Cindric
- Justin Allgaier
- Harrison Burton
- Brandon Jones
- Noah Gragson
- Jeb Burton
- Justin Haley
- Sam Mayer
- Michael Annett
- Brandon Brown
- Riley Herbst
- Josh Williams
- Myatt Snider
- Jeremy Clements
- Kris Wright
- Ryan Sieg
- Tommy Joe Martins
- Landon Cassill
- Jade Buford
- Daniel Hemric
- Preston Pardus
- Josh Bilicki
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Brett Moffitt
- Jesse Little
- Stephen Leicht
- Timmy Hill
- Joe Graf Jr.
- Colby Howard
- Bayley Currey
- Dave Smith
- Kyle Weatherman
- Michael Munley
- Erik Jones
- Austin Dillon
- Matt Mills
- Alex Labbe
- Kyle Tilley
Stage 1
- Austin Cindric
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Daniel Hemric
- Harrison Burton
- Jeb Burton
- Justin Haley
- Noah Gragson
- Brandon Jones
- Riley Herbst
- Sam Mayer
Stage 2
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Ty Gibbs
- Austin Cindric
- Justin Allgaier
- Noah Gragson
- Riley Herbst
- Sam Mayer
- Michael Annett
- Erik Jones
- Daniel Hemric
Next up: The Xfinity Series ventures to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard on Aug. 14.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series
Race: United Rentals 176
Who Won?
Austin Hill. The Georgian led as rain and lightning brought the race to an early end to cap off the regular season with a pair of victories.
Who Won the Stages?
Todd Gilliland and Hill
Top Stories
Trending in the right direction
Austin Hill started his 2021 Camping World Truck Series campaign with the two worst results of the regular season. Six months later, he’s rolling into the playoffs off of his best two runs of the year.
Results of 22nd and 33rd at Daytona made for an inauspicious start to 2021 for Hill and the No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises team. But after the slow beginning, the Georgian found consistent form for the remainder of the regular season, tallying top-10s in 12 of the remaining 13 races with a 13th-place result at Darlington Raceway serving as the lone outlier.
That was enough to lift Hill into the top-three positions in the point standings, but Hill marched into the penultimate regular season race at Knoxville Raceway in July without a win on the year, leaving himself in dire need of playoff points to improve his postseason odds.
Hill had two more opportunities to make something happen and help his standing. He made the most of them both.
Dodging the chaos that unfolded in Knoxville allowed Hill to score his first win of the season just before the summer break. A month later, he held the top spot as lightning descended upon Watkins Glen International to score another victory in the weather-shortened regular season finale.
Just like that, Hill has grown from a quiet playoff hopeful into one of the top contenders, taking 21 playoff points with him into what’s sure to be an unpredictable postseason.
Is that enough points to make him safe? Absolutely not. But it sits second among all series regulars in a season where only one contender – five-time winner and regular season champ John Hunter Nemechek – has stood out.
Nemechek is surely the championship favorite as things stand. But Hill needs only to survive to the championship finale at Phoenix Raceway to have an opportunity to upset the Kyle Busch Motorsports star.
The field is set
Saturday’s race serving as the regular season finale meant that the 2021 Truck Series playoff field was set at race’s end.
With no surprise winners and sizable points gaps on the bubble, Austin Hill’s win meant there was little drama to be had in settling the final positions in the field. Only Derek Kraus threatened to challenge the status quo by running in the top-five early on, and he fell out of contention after spinning out with 19 laps left.
Kraus and Tyler Ankrum were the two stars closest to the cut line entering the weekend, but neither gained enough ground to score a postseason place. They join 2016 champion Johnny Sauter, Austin Wayne Self, Ryan Truex and Hailie Deegan as drivers on the outside looking in.
Those contending for this year’s title after winning include regular season champion John Hunter Nemecheck, Hill, Ben Rhodes, Todd Gilliland and defending series champion Sheldon Creed. Runner-up Zane Smith, three-time champion Matt Crafton, Carson Hocevar, Chandler Smith and Stewart Friesen are also all locked in after transferring through on points. Grant Enfinger would have fit into this group, but he missed a race due to lack of a funded ride and therefore wasn’t considered playoff eligible despite his five top-fives and eight top-10s during the regular season.
Nemechek enters the playoffs with 49 playoff points and a 28-point edge on Hill. Rhodes has (-30), Gilliland (-34) and Creed (-38) follow, with Zane Smith (-40), Crafton (-45), Hocevar (-47), Chandler Smith (-48) and Friesen (-48) completing the field.
The first round will consist of World Wide Technology Raceway (Aug. 20), Darlington Raceway (Sept. 5) and Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 16), with the bottom two playoff drivers eliminated after the finale. The Round of 8 will see eight contenders battle for a Championship 4 berth at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Sept. 24), Talladega Superspeedway (Oct. 2) and Martinsville Speedway (Oct. 30), with the four remaining drivers battling for the title at Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 5).
Notes
- With Saturday’s result, Austin Hill now has multiple wins win each of his three seasons with Hattori Racing Enterprises. Hill is up to eight victories total, with 25 top-fives and 42 top-10s in 61 starts for the squad.
- Parker Kligerman made the most of the road course opportunity to notch a fifth-place finish for Henderson Motorsports at Watkins Glen. The result was his fourth top-five in the past five seasons for the squad, and his first outside of Bristol Motor Speedway since his Talladega Superspeedway win in 2017.
- Sheldon Creed’s third-place effort was the sixth top-five of his 2021 campaign, just three short of the nine he managed in last year’s title run. The real question from here is whether or not he’ll be able to minimize the results outside of the top-30 — he’s had four of them in the past nine races — and score more victories like he did in a five-win 2020 title run.
- Todd Gilliland scored his seventh top-five of 2021 at Watkins Glen, meaning he’s already set a new personal best mark for the stat through just 15 races. This could be a career year for the 21-year-old.
- A.J. Allmendinger made an unexpected run in the Truck Series after Chase Purdy was forced out for the weekend with COVID-19. Allmendinger ran near the front for the No. 23 team, but was caught out in 27th at race’s end.
- Chandler Smith was disqualified from Saturday’s results due to an inspection failure, leaving him last among the field. Thankfully for the Kyle Busch Motorsports prospect, it wasn’t enough to keep him from making the postseason field.
- Taylor Gray made his Truck Series debut at Watkins Glen, coming home in 35th in the No. 17 Ford.
- As far as similar names among nearby finishers go, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more unique trio than Bobby Reuse, Roger Reuse and Josh Reaume from 29th through 31st.
- Paul Menard was back in the Truck Series field for the second time this year on Saturday, quietly driving to a respectable eighth-place effort for ThorSport Racing.
Results
- Austin Hill
- John Hunter Nemechek
- Sheldon Creed
- Todd Gilliland
- Parker Kligerman
- Zane Smith
- Tyler Ankrum
- Paul Menard
- Sam Mayer
- Carson Hocevar
- Josh Berry
- Kaz Grala
- Christian Eckes
- Tanner Gray
- Ben Rhodes
- Austin Wayne Self
- Ryan Truex
- Corey Heim
- Hailie Deegan
- Stewart Friesen
- Derek Kraus
- Matt Crafton
- Johnny Sauter
- Timmy Hill
- Jack Wood
- Tate Fogleman
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Danny Bohn
- Bobby Reuse
- Roger Reuse
- Josh Reaume
- Lawless Alan
- Spencer Boyd
- Chad Chastain
- Taylor Gray
- Jennifer Jo Cobb
- Norm Benning
- Grant Enfinger
- Will Rodgers
- Chandler Smith
Stage 1
- Todd GIlliland
- Sheldon Creed
- Derek Kraus
- Josh Berry
- Austin Wayne Self
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Paul Menard
- Stewart Friesen
- Ben Rhodes
- Ryan Truex
Stage 2
- Austin Hill
- John Hunter Nemechek
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Zane Smith
- Sheldon Creed
- Tyler Ankrum
- Ben Rhodes
- Carson Hocevar
- Todd Gilliland
- Sam Mayer
Next up: The Truck Series heads to Illinois for the playoff opener at World Wide Technology Raceway on Aug. 20.
