Roush Fenway Weekly Advance | Watkins Glen

Coming off a rare two-week break in its long season, NASCAR is back on track this weekend at Watkins Glen for the first of two-straight road course races. It makes the first of four straight races in a final run to the 2021 NASCAR Playoffs. RFR has six wins all-time at The Glen, including three in the Cup Series.

NASCAR Cup Series Race at Watkins Glen
Sunday, August 8 at 3 p.m. ET
NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM Channel 90

· Ryan Newman, No. 6 Socios Ford Mustang
· Chris Buescher, No. 17 Socios Ford Mustang

Loudon Recap, Watkins Glen Preview

· Looking back a couple weeks to the last event at Loudon, Buescher finished 29th after getting caught up in someone else’s incident.

· Newman ran 24th in the last race at Loudon.

· Socios will be the primary for both RFR machines at Watkins Glen this weekend, with an Ice theme on the No. 17, and a Fire theme on the No. 6.

There’s Nothing You Can’t Do, Now You’re in New York
In 105 NCS starts at WGI, Roush Fenway has three wins, 23 top-five and 41 top-10 finishes along with four poles. All three of RFR’s victories came with former driver and NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin (1993, 1994, 1995).

Top of the List, King of the Hill

Martin secured three-straight wins for Roush Fenway at the famed New York road course from 1993-95. He started on the pole for each of the three races and led a combined 183 laps during the three-year streak.

Tale of the Tape – Road Courses

In 226 road course starts all-time in the NCS, Jack Roush’s Fords have won five races and tallied 38 top-five and 77 top-10 finishes, along with six poles. In those 226 starts, an RFR Ford has led 577 laps for an average finish of 17.7.

Socios Makes Debut in New York This Weekend

It was announced back in May that Socios – the leading blockchain platform for the global sports and entertainment industry – announced the $ROUSH Fan Token. Fan tokens are collectible digital assets, minted on the Chiliz blockchain that provide owners with access to voting rights in polls, VIP rewards, exclusive promotions, AR-enabled features, chat forums, games and competitions on the mobile app Socios.com.

Through the $ROUSH Fan Tokens, fans were given the opportunity to vote on and help influence all assets associated with the race team at WGI, including the paint scheme for both RFR machines. A ‘Fire and Ice’ theme was decided on, with the No. 6 receiving the fire theme, and ice on the No. 17 team. Roush Fenway was the first U.S. sports team to launch a fan token on Socios.com.

Roush Fenway Watkins Glen Wins
1993 Martin Cup
1994 Martin Cup
1995 Martin Cup
1998 Ruttman Truck
2000 Biffle Truck
2012 Edwards NXS

Matt DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Menards/Moen team are headed to Watkins Glen International hoping to pick up where they left off when NASCAR took a two-week break so broadcast partner NBC could focus on the Tokyo Olympics.

In their most recent run, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, DiBenedetto and the team finished 11th, their third-straight finish of 11th or better. That came after finishes of ninth at Atlanta Motor Speedway and 10th at Road America.

The Road America result – and the layout at the Glen – have DiBenedetto optimistic heading into Sunday’s 200.5-mile race on the fast, 11-turn Watkins Glen course.

“The Glen is fun,” he said. “It’s way different than any other road course since it’s so high speed.

“After our speed we had at Road America I’m way more encouraged to go to Watkins Glen.”

DiBenedetto said he and the Menards/Moen team have been putting in extra effort on their road course cars as the elite Cup Series is running seven road course races this season.

“We have been working hard on the road courses,” he said. “And we have a lot of good momentum on our side.” DiBenedetto said.

There will be no qualifying or pre-race practice at Watkins Glen, and DiBenedetto will line up 14th for the start. The line-up is set by a metric based on performances in the most recent race.

Sunday’s 90-lap Go Bowling at the Glen is set to get the green flag just after 3 p.m. Eastern Time with TV coverage on NBCSN. Stage breaks will come at Laps 20 and 40.

Menards

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Wood Brothers Racing

Wood Brothers Racing was formed in 1950 in Stuart, Va., by Hall of Famer Glen Wood. Wood Brothers Racing is the oldest active team and one of the winningest teams in NASCAR history. Since its founding, the team won 99 races (including at least one race in every decade for the last seven decades) and 120 poles in NASCAR’s top-tier series. Fielding only Ford products for its entire history, the Wood Brothers own the longest association of any motorsports team with a single manufacturer. Glen’s brother, Leonard, is known for inventing the modern pit stop. The team currently runs the Ford Mustang driven by Matt DiBenedetto in the famous No. 21 racer.

CHASE BRISCOE
Watkins Glen Advance
No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing

Event Overview

● Event: Go Bowling at The Glen (Round 23 of 36)
● Time/Date: 3 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Aug. 8
● Location: Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International
● Layout: Seven-turn, 2.45-mile road course
● Laps/Miles: 90 laps / 220.5 miles
● Stage Lengths: Stage 1: 20 laps / Stage 2: 20 laps / Final Stage: 50 laps
● TV/Radio: NBCSN / MRN / SiriusXM NASCAR Radio

Notes of Interest

● Chase Briscoe and the No. 14 HighPoint.com team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) return to NASCAR Cup Series competition this Sunday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International following a rare, two-week hiatus while NASCAR television partner NBC and its family of networks covered the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 90-lap event marks the fifth of seven NASCAR Cup Series races to be held on road courses in 2021.

● In the last road course outing five weekends ago at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, Briscoe matched his career-best Cup Series finish of sixth, first earned May 23 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

● The HighPoint.com driver finished sixth in his only NASCAR Xfinity Series start at Watkins Glen. He finished in the top-10 in all but three of the 10 road-course races in which he competed in the Xfinity Series, including a victory in last year’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And in his lone NASCAR Camping World Truck Series start on a road course – in 2017 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario – Briscoe finished seventh in a Ford F-150.

● Prior to Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowling at The Glen, Briscoe will compete in Friday’s ARCA Racing Series race in the No. 14 Huffy Bicycles/Parker Boats Ford Fusion. The Cup Series rookie most recently used the ARCA race as a primer for the Cup Series event at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway. He started third and led all 51 laps en route to his first ARCA West Series victory.

Chase Briscoe, Driver of the No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You had a nice two-week break, but now we’re back with just four races to go in the regular season. How are you feeling about making your first Cup Series start at Watkins Glen?

“It’s only been two weeks but it feels like forever, so I’m looking forward to getting back to racing. This year, our best results have come on the road courses and now we’ve got two back-to-back, but Watkins Glen is probably lower on the list of my favorite road courses. I’ve only raced there once, so I don’t have a ton of experience there and, like every other track, having no practice will make it that much more challenging because it is a track where the car is maybe a little more important than the driver’s road-course racing ability. I’m going to run the ARCA race on Friday to get some more time on track, learn the turns and try to figure some things out.”

Some call Watkins Glen an aggressive road course. Would you agree?

“Yeah, in some ways. Watkins Glen is so different than some of the other tracks we go to. It’s not a very technical track, but it is very high-speed, so the car is more important. At other road courses, you can kind of beat the car up a little and it’ll still be OK, but you need that aero at The Glen. There really isn’t a slow corner like we have at some other tracks, so you have to have a car that is fast and that you can be aggressive with. It’ll be hard to make up ground on some guys if you get behind. There’s not as much wheel spin there, so you won’t be able to go in and play chicken with one of the other guys, but there are some areas where you can make up a spot if you’ve got the car that can handle it.”

Right now, you’re in a position where you have to win to make the playoffs so, for the next four races, do you roll all the dice to have a shot?

“I would think so, but I’ll leave that to Johnny (Klausmeier, crew chief) since he’s calling the shots. I think the next four races probably are all wild-card races and anything can happen. There’s so much strategy at the road courses and that’s where we’ve been the strongest, so it could happen. Michigan is the 550 (horsepower) package, so whoever can figure that out will be the best, and we all know at Daytona anything can happen. We’ll do whatever we can to try to get a win, but I think these next four races will be pretty exciting for everyone watching.”

No. 14 HighPoint.com Team Roster

Primary Team Members

Driver: Chase Briscoe
Hometown: Mitchell, Indiana

Crew Chief: John Klausmeier
Hometown: Perry Hall, Maryland

Car Chief: Chad Haney
Hometown: Fairmont, West Virginia

Engineer: Mike Cook
Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland

Engineer: Marc Hendricksen
Hometown: Clinton, New Jersey

Spotter: Joe White
Hometown: Windsor, Virginia

Over-The-Wall Members

Front Tire Changer: Daniel Coffey
Hometown: Granite Falls, North Carolina

Rear Tire Changer: Chris Jackson
Hometown: Rock Hill, South Carolina

Tire Carrier: Jon Bernal
Hometown: Shelby, North Carolina

Jack Man: Brett Morrell

Hometown: Windham, Maine

Fuel Man: Justin Wilson
Hometown: Wise, Virginia

Road Crew Members

Underneath Mechanic: Stephen Gonzalez
Hometown: Mooresville, North Carolina

Front End Mechanic: J.D. Frey
Hometown: Ferndale, California

Interior Mechanic: Trevor Adams
Hometown: Naples, Florida

Tire Specialist: Keith Eads
Hometown: Arlington, Virginia

Engine Tuner: Jon Phillips
Hometown: Jefferson City, Missouri

Transporter Co-Driver: Todd Cable
Hometown: Shelby, North Carolina

Transporter Co-Driver: Glenn Funderburk
Hometown: Mint Hill, North Carolina

Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR XFINITY Series
NASCAR Zoom Media Availability | Wednesday, August 4, 2021

ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang — WHAT DID YOU DO DURING YOUR BREAK? “Right after Loudon, we did some stuff around the house. I had a lot of media to do Monday and Tuesday, and then some stuff to do for sponsors on Wednesday. And then Thursday, we were go-kart testing and Friday we were go-kart practicing and we raced Saturday. Then we got on an airplane after Alex’s go-kart race and went down to Key West and went on vacation down there and did a bunch of fishing and lobster diving and a really fun time down there. I left straight from Key West and got Janice and the kids home back to Charlotte, and then went up to Wisconsin last night and ran an ARCA Midwest Tour Late Model race in Kaukauna, Wisconsin and had some fun doing that, going back to my roots and doing some short track racing. I got to the hotel last night about midnight and got up at 4:30 this morning to catch a 6:30 flight back to Charlotte and I’ve been going hard since I hit the ground here in Charlotte.”

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT THE GLEN THIS WEEKEND? “It’s not a secret that road racing has never been something that I’ve excelled at. I’ve worked really hard at getting better at it, and I feel like I have gotten a lot better at it, but Watkins Glen has been a racetrack that I enjoy going to. It is a fun racetrack to run at. I enjoy making laps around there and racing there. I’ve qualified really well the last few years there. I qualified in the top 10 actually the last few years there, and have just not been able to put the results together and get good finishes. I got wrecked one time, had a transmission issue one time, so we’ve had a lot of different things kind of creep up and hurt our result, but I feel like Watkins Glen is a place I can go and run in the top 10, but I’ve never felt like I was a threat to win there. I’m not sure going there, I still don’t feel like we’ll be a threat to win, but it’s a place that I feel comfortable and feel like if we got some track position and got off strategy on pit sequence or stretch our fuel mileage or something like that, it’s certainly a possibility for us to go there and steal a win and that would be awesome.”

HOW HARD HAVE YOU WORKED ON YOUR RESTARTS? “That’s really what has changed a lot of things about our sport is the restarts. The restarts have gotten wild and crazy and it’s everything. You can gain five or six spots in the first two laps of a restart now and you can lose five or six spots, and even if you’re better than those cars in two laps if you give up six spots, it will take you 50 laps to get those six spots back, so it is really important to get good restarts. That’s something I’ve certainly worked hard at and been mindful of getting better at restarts and maintaining position or advancing positions, and we’ve been able to do that this year. Even though the year has been a struggle at some of the racetracks we’ve gone to, there has been some things to take away that have been marked improvements.”

HOW DO YOU GET BACK INTO A COMPETITIVE MINDSET AFTER A TWO-WEEK BREAK LIKE THIS? “I took a week to vacation out of the two weeks that we’ve had off, but the rest of the time has been spent racing. I was racing with my son, Alex, and then I was racing a late model last night in Wisconsin. It’s who I am. It’s what I do. I enjoy time away. I certainly enjoy clearing my head and get to spend some quality family time, but at the same time going to the racetrack is normal. I really enjoy normal and the routine of going to the racetrack each and every weekend and going to compete.”

DO YOU FEEL LOUDON WAS A TURNING POINT FOR YOU AND THE FORDS OVERALL? “I do. I feel like we’re getting better. I feel like we’re starting to turn the corner. I do think we’ve made significant improvements with our cars, specifically with the 750 package. Nashville was really the one that stood out to me as kind of the turning point for us. We went there and qualified on the pole, ran in the top five a majority of the race, and I think we finished fourth. So, we had a good run there and really started to see light at the end of the tunnel. We started to see that we were making some positive improvements on the race cars and getting things going the right direction motor-wise, car build-wise, just all these things. We went to Loudon and, yeah, it was a great race for Fords all-around. The Penske cars were fast. The Stewart-Haas cars were fast. It was a great race for us, obviously, to be able to go up there and compete and pass a lot of race cars. We started deep in the field, so to pass a lot of race cars and have a great day on pit road and do all the things we needed to do to execute a perfect race to win in a clutch situation where we had to win.”

WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON GOING TO THE INDY ROAD COURSE NEXT WEEK AS OPPOSED TO THE OVAL? “If I’m being honest I’m sad about it, to be just honest. I think racing on the oval was so cool just because I was a kid and went and watched an Indy 500 back in the late nineties. It was a special place and to race on the oval was just special. I mean, you think about the history of that racetrack and the people that have ran around that rectangular racetrack and crossed that yard of bricks and all those things and all the races that went on before you dating back to the early 1900’s, it’s just a very special place so to not race on the oval is weird. I’ll certainly miss it, but I have no doubt that we will put on an exciting race on the road course and it will be a lot of fun to try and figure that place out.”

DO YOU LEAN ON CHASE BRISCOE AT ALL SINCE HE RACED AND WON ON THE COURSE LAST YEAR IN THE XFINITY SERIES? “Absolutely. I will, for sure, lean on him and pick his brain. He ran really well there, obviously won the Xfinity race last year, so I will absolutely lean on him.”

ARE THERE ANY LESSONS THAT WILL CARRY OVER NEXT YEAR EVEN IF PRACTICE STARTS AGAIN? “Yeah, I think practice is gonna be really important with the new car. I think there’s so much to learn, and I think it’s gonna be huge any track time that you do get and to maximize the track time that you get. There’s gonna be a lot to learn. When you get started with a new product, I mean, it’s new from top to bottom. Everything about it is new — the parts, the pieces, even driving it. It’s got rack-and-pinion steering instead of power-steering. It’s got five gears instead of four gears. It’s not an h-pattern shifter, it’s a sequential shifter, so all those things are very different, so getting on track, practicing, going through a laundry list of ideas and setup changes and all those things to try and hit on something because out of the gate somebody is gonna hit on something and they will be the dominant team, and then everybody else will play catch-up. You want to be the team that hits it first.”

WHAT DID THE WIN AT LOUDON DO AS FAR AS CONVERSATIONS WITH STEWART-HAAS AND SMITHFIELD ABOUT NEXT YEAR? “Those talks have been ongoing. That happens every year regardless, so obviously winning makes things better — always. It makes the morale at the shop better, the team better and it boosts momentum going into the playoffs and all those things. So, it certainly helps, but we’re going on 10 years of a wonderful relationship with them. I look forward to continuing that for many more years. Winning always helps.”

IS IT YOUR EXPECTATION YOU’LL BE BACK WITH SHR NEXT YEAR? “Yeah, I’ve had a multi-year contract for a while now, so we don’t disclose all the contract terms to all of you guys because all you’d do is ask every year anyway.”

DID YOUR WIN AT LOUDON PUT ANY MORE PRESSURE ON THE 4 GOING FORWARD? “I have no idea. You would have to ask Kevin Harvick that question, not me. I’m sure they have a lot of confidence that they will make it into the playoffs. They’re a great race team and I’m sure they’ll be fast at some of these races coming up. He’s dominated Michigan the last several years. I’m sure they’ll be fast at Daytona. I have no doubt that they’re thinking about it. If I was in their situation I would certainly at least be thinking about it or be aware, but I believe they have confidence in their team and certainly in our organization that they’ll be able to get the job done and go make the playoffs.”

ARE THERE CERTAIN THINGS YOUR TEAM IS LOOKING AT IMPROVING FOR THE PLAYOFFS? “We’ve been focusing on improving at a rapid pace just to try and turn our season around, and I think we’ve done that, certainly in the last month to month-and-a-half. I’m looking forward to the playoffs. I feel like we are starting to peak at the right time, which is important in sports in general. I watched my Tampa Bay Buccaneers peak at the right time and go on to win a Super Bowl, and winning as the lowest seed there, so that’s what it’s really about and I feel like we’re getting there. We’re getting our race cars better and better. We’re figuring out some things about our race cars to make them better and faster and that’s what it’s gonna take. You can’t take slow race cars into the playoffs and go win a championship, and I feel like we’re doing a really good job of getting the most out of our race cars now and we’re continuing to build on that. So, looking forward to doing that — to close out the regular season and then as we go into the playoffs, and as we go into the playoffs it’s really gonna be about execution. You can’t have pit road speeding penalties. You can’t have loose wheels. You can’t have slow pit stops. The driver’s got to do his job on restarts and getting the most out of the race car, so it’s a total team effort and we’ve got to execute on every facet of the race.”