NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen International
auto race held in Watkins Glen, New York, USA
Stock car racing events in the NASCAR Cup Series have taken place at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York on the 2.454-mile (3.949 km) road course annually since 1986. Since 2018, the 100-lap, 245.54-mile (395.16 km) race has been known as Go Bowling at The Glen for sponsorship reasons.
Shane van Gisbergen is the defending race winner.
History
Prior to 1986, three races were held in 1957 (in one of the track's first professional races), as well in 1964 and 1965. These races were held in the track's original configuration, which was 2.35 miles long.
The current NASCAR Cup race at the track began in 1986, utilizing a shortened 2.45 mile course. Following the 1991 death of J. D. McDuffie in a crash in the Outer Loop, at the end of the backstretch, and a subsequent, serious crash by IMSA driver, Tommy Kendall, the Inner Loop "bus stop" chicane was added just before the Outer Loop. NASCAR has since utilized this 2.45-mile (3.94 km) "short course," and has never utilized the "Boot" as IndyCar and Formula One have. Some drivers, however, have proposed the use of the full course.
During a 2011 Mobil Oil "Car Swap" at Watkins Glen using the course, Tony Stewart pushed for using the Grand Prix course after driving demonstration laps in both his Chevrolet Impala and the majority of his laps in a McLaren MP4-23 as part of the event with Lewis Hamilton.
The public source identifies “NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen International” as auto race held in Watkins Glen, New York, USA. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around NASCAR, Series and Watkins.
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This entry incorporates text from “NASCAR Cup Series at Watkins Glen International” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.