WATKINS GLEN
Friday, August 8 – NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 5 p.m. ET (FS1)
Saturday, August 9 – NASCAR Xfinity Series, 3 p.m. ET (CW)
Sunday, August 10 – NASCAR Cup Series, 2 p.m. ET (USA)
When NASCAR came to Watkins Glen International a year ago, it marked the second race of the Cup Series playoffs. That’s not the case this year as the event returns to the regular season with all three major touring series in action. Ford’s Chris Buescher is the defending winner after registering his first road course victory in the Cup Series a year ago at The Glen.
A GLEN REPEAT FOR BUESCHER?
Chris Buescher took advantage of a mistake by Shane Van Gisbergen on the final lap to pass him and win last year’s Go Bowling at the Glen, giving Ford its fourth straight NASCAR Cup Series victory. The race came down to an overtime restart that saw Van Gisbergen get past Buescher after a physical turn one. He held that advantage all the way until the two cars got to the track’s iconic “Bus Stop” corner on the final lap, but that’s when Van Gisbergen clipped the inside retaining barrier and slowed his momentum enough to allow Buescher to squeeze to his inside and make the decisive pass. For Buescher, it marked his first Cup Series triumph on a road course.
LOGANO AT THE GLEN
Joey Logano comes into this weekend with seven career top-10 NASCAR Cup Series finishes at Watkins Glen International, including a victory in 2015. That win made him the first driver to sweep a race weekend at the track after he won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race the day before. In addition, it marked Roger Penske’s first Cup victory at the historic track.
KESELOWSKI AND CINDRIC AT WGI
Brad Keselowski and Austin Cindric have also been to Victory Lane at Watkins Glen International with both getting their checkered flags in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Keselowski, who has three second-place finishes and one third on the Cup side, posted his victory in 2013 while Cindric passed AJ Allmendinger with two laps to go for his win in 2019. Keselowski will also have a chance to extend his 2025 top-five streak to three races.
BLANEY’S STRONG FORM
For the first time in 2025, Ryan Blaney has secured top-ten finishes in three consecutive races, scoring 8th and 7th place finishes at Dover and Indianapolis before improving further to a 4th place finish at Iowa last weekend. His top-five finish at Iowa marked his eighth of 2025, leading all Ford drivers. This run has also propelled him to seventh place in the points.
RYAN PREECE: “I think the road courses have been really good for us. I feel really confident in what we got there, and I think we’re going to be just fine. We’ve been just trying to find a good work ethic, and find what it takes to run well there. Going to Watkins Glen is always fun.”
CHRIS BUESCHER: “We had a really good car at Watkins Glen that took a while to get going. Our long run speed was really the perk there, and the way the race played out, our long run speed was very strong. We had some good strategies as well and with the handful of restarts we were still able to go toe for toe there. We’ve seen some separation between short and long run speed at some tracks, and The Glen was probably the largest offset last year. I don’t know if that’ll be the case this year, and also, we don’t really want it to be that large. We need to figure out how to fire off a little bit better, and that’s probably our bigger focus right now.”
ZANE SMITH: “I’m looking forward to Watkins Glen for sure and it’s just a really fun road course. I’m hoping for some good weather and we had a fast car that was able to run well last year.”
CLASSIC FINISH
One of the all-time classic finishes at Watkins Glen International came when Marcos Ambrose went slip sliding away on the final lap, but still resulted in him winning the NASCAR Cup Series race for the second straight time on August 12, 2012. In a race that had more twists and turns over the final three laps than many can remember in recent years, Ambrose was the one who survived a massive streak of oil that had been laid down on the track, allowing him to pass Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski for Ford’s third win of the season. Busch appeared to be headed toward victory, but as he came into turn one on the final lap, he slipped in some oil and got loose. Keselowski came up from behind and hit Busch, sending him spinning off the track. A battle between Ambrose and Keselowski ensued from that point with both drivers trying to avoid the slickness that had covered the course. Ambrose followed Keselowski through the grass at one point, but was able to get by in the treacherous carousel when Keselowski slid one final time.
THREE STRAIGHT
Mark Martin became the first driver to win three straight NASCAR Cup Series races at Watkins Glen International, and he capped that streak on Aug. 13, 1995 after passing Wally Dallenbach, Jr. on lap 84 of the 90-lap event. Martin, who led a race-high 61 circuits overall, held off the road racing specialist to win by one second. That victory completed a three-year run that saw him not only sit on the pole every time but lead 183-of-270 laps (68%).
MAYER GOING FOR SECOND GLEN WIN
After taking his first victory of the season last week at Iowa Speedway, Sam Mayer now has eight career NASCAR Xfinity Series victories and one of them came at Watkins Glen International in 2023. The overtime win was his second in four weeks after capturing the first victory of his career at Road America. Overall, Mayer has won four times on road courses with a pair of triumphs on the Charlotte Roval being his other two.
WELCOME BACK
This year will mark the seventh all-time NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at The Glen and the first since 2021. The track hosted one race per year from 1996-2000 and included Ford wins by Joe Ruttman (1998) and Greg Biffle (2000) before returning to the schedule four years ago. This weekend’s event comes at a particularly crucial time as it marks the next-to-last race in the regular season. The 10-driver field will be set next week at Daytona International Speedway.
LAST TIME OUT
Layne Riggs led 160 of 200 laps in the last NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race where he swept the stages and pulled off a commanding win at Indianapolis Raceway Park. Riggs took his second win of the season and finished in the top spot by nearly two seconds after leading most of the way from taking the lead on lap 21. Riggs’s win at IRP was his second of the season as he solidified his third-place position in the standings.
BUESCHER’S TRUCK DEBUT
Chris Buescher will make his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut at Watkins Glen this weekend driving the No. 66 Ford F-150 for ThorSport Racing. Buescher is the reigning winner in the NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen, and has top ten finishes in each of his last three appearances at the track. It is Buescher’s first appearance in NASCAR in a non-Cup Series division since 2015.
FORD NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS
AT WATKINS GLEN
1965 – Marvin Panch
1993 – Mark Martin
1994 – Mark Martin
1995 – Mark Martin
1995 – Mark Martin
1996 – Geoffrey Bodine
2011 – Marcos Ambrose
2012 – Marcos Ambrose
2015 – Joey Logano
2024 – Chris Buescher
FORD NASCAR XFINITY SERIES WINNERS
AT WATKINS GLEN
1993 – Bill Elliott
2008 – Marcos Ambrose
2012 – Carl Edwards
2013 – Brad Keselowski
2014 – Marcos Ambrose
2015 – Joey Logano
2016 – Joey Logano
2018 – Joey Logano
2019 – Austin Cindric
FORD NASCAR CRAFTSMAN TRUCK SERIES WINNERS AT WATKINS GLEN
1998 – Joe Ruttman
2000 – Greg Biffle
The Ford Mustang, celebrating its 61st anniversary in 2025, is the world’s best selling sports car. It is also one of the planet’s most popular race cars. With Mustang-based race cars competing in international sports car competition (GT3 and GT4), NASCAR, NHRA, Formula Drift, in Australian Supercars, at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and in its own bespoke one-make series – Mustang Cup and Mustang Challenge – the platform has an unprecedented global reach. This weekend, 29 Mustang race cars are scheduled to race across all disciplines. Learn more at FordPerformance.com.
