Joey Logano stifled the attempt by the drivers, who didn’t advance to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, to spoil the show in last Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Logano, a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and current Playoff contender, won the race and will advance to the Round of 12 of the Playoffs.
This week, the NASCAR Cup Series heads to New York, and the 2.450-mile Watkins Glen International road course. The 8-turn, high-speed road course presents a lot of challenges for drivers, and as we’ve seen over the years when there is trouble at The Glen, it can be big.
However, this time around, there also presents the question of new curbing and rumble strips around the facility, which could react differently with the race cars, and a new Goodyear tire compound, which is expected to create higher levels of tire degradation. With new things comes the opportunity for surprise winners. And this week, there are five non-Playoff drivers, who I feel are best suited to deliver a surprising win this weekend in the Go Bowling at The Glen.
Shane van Gisbergen
This one is a layup, but SVG will undoubtedly be in the mix for the race win in Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen. So long as his No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet doesn’t experience a mechanical failure, and the driver doesn’t get swept up in someone else’s issue (like what happened at the Chicago Street Course), SVG has shown he has what it takes to be near the front in any NASCAR event at a road course.
The legend of the Australian Supercars Series will continue to look to learn as much as he can about the NASCAR Cup Series car and the other drivers in the series ahead of moving to the No. 88 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet full-time in 2025.
AJ Allmendinger
Possibly more obvious than SVG is AJ Allmendinger, who will pilot the No. 13 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet this weekend. Allmendinger is one of the most talented road racers in NASCAR National Series history, and he is a former NASCAR Cup Series race winner at Watkins Glen.
Additionally, Allmendinger enters Sunday’s race with the third-best average finish (8.8) at Watkins Glen of any driver that will be in the field. In 12 career Cup starts at The Glen, Allmendinger has five top-five finishes and eight top-10s. He’ll definitely be someone to keep an eye on as far as a potential upset winner goes.
Michael McDowell
How about Michael McDowell? The driver who has amassed five pole positions this season is still searching for his elusive first win of the 2024 campaign. He’s been close a couple of times, but it just hasn’t panned out just yet. However, we all know how good the Front Row Motorsports driver is at road courses.
That being said, McDowell’s career record at The Glen has plenty of blemishes and just one solid top-10 finish. With an average finish of 26.5 at Watkins Glen International, you can call me whatever you want to call me for including McDowell on this list, but I think there is more to McDowell’s potential this weekend than simply looking at his career average finish.
For starters, McDowell, who was a career journeyman before landing with Front Row Motorsports ahead of the 2018 season, never really had solid equipment underneath him from 2008 to 2017. And even his first few seasons at Front Row, the team was a bit of an afterthought. However, in the last few seasons, Front Row has improved, and so too has McDowell’s standing within the sport.
He started third in this race in 2022 and finished sixth after leading 14 laps, and he started third again last season but finished 36th after an electrical issue put him out of the race. If the FRM Ford can hold up, mechanically, I think McDowell will get his best career finish at Watkins Glen this weekend.
Chris Buescher
Chris Buescher is probably one of the most underrated road course racers in the NASCAR Cup Series today. In fact, Buescher’s career average finish on squiggly tracks is 13.4, which is the best career average finish for the RFK Racing driver at any type of track.
Buescher has racked up 14 top-10 finishes in his NASCAR Cup Series career on road course layouts, including in each of the last two seasons at Watkins Glen International. If you’re looking for a hungry driver outside of the Playoffs who would do whatever it takes to win this weekend, Buescher would be on the list for sure.
Kyle Busch
With how he’s been running as of late, I feel we need to keep Kyle Busch on this list until he gives us a reason to take him off of it. The Richard Childress Racing driver has registered an average finish of 3.75 over his last four starts, and the starts have come at a variety of different styles of race track.
This week, he heads to a road course, can he keep the momentum going? I truly think so. Busch and the No. 8 team seem to be feeding off of their results, and week after week they seemingly get stronger and stronger.
While he has two wins at Watkins Glen, Busch hasn’t visited victory lane there since the 2013 season. But even without piling on more wins, he has a slew of solid results at the track including a runner-up finish in 2015, a third-place run in 2018, and a fourth-place result in 2021. Busch has confidence, and he can see the light at the end of the tunnel. He seems poised to extend his consecutive seasons with a win streak to 20 seasons, it’s just a question of when, not if, at this point. It could be this weekend.
