Race #23 of the 35 race season for the NASCAR Nationwide Series. This time the Nationwide drivers head to Watkins Glen, the second of three road courses they'll run at this year, for the Zippo 200.
Being a road course, we'll expect quite a bit of "road course ringers", and this list has quite a few: Ron Fellow's (will drive the #5 Canadian Tire Chevy), Tomy Drissi (driver of the #41 "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" / Muscle Milk Ford), Andrew Ranger (driver of the #53 Bollegraaf Dodge), and many others (some of which are driving for underfunded teams).
One driver that's not running this race, that is surprising most people, is Marcos Ambrose. To my understanding, Ambrose was going to run a RPM Nationwide car, but the team decided to withdraw before the entry list came out because of lack of sponsorship for the Zippo 200. There's still a high chance we'll see Ambrose in the Montreal race this year, which is race #24. He'll be 1 of 3 drivers (that we know so far) that'll be doing double-duty for that weekend (Carl Edwards (Billy Johnson most likely will practice and qualify the 60 car) and Michael McDowell (will drive the #18 JGR Toyota)are the other two).
Qualifying: Like past road course qualifying sessions for the Nationwide Series, there'll be 5-6 drivers per group for a set amount of time. Don't have a driver in mind, but any driver from the last 3 groups will make the pole, unless a driver that comes out early pulls off a upset and gets the pole. Qualifying is on Saturday at 9:30 on SPEED Channel.
The Race: One driver I see spoiling the show from a Cup-Regular win is Ron Fellows. 10 races there, he has 3 wins (all coming driving for Joe Nemechek), average start is 8.3, and average finish is 11.6. Of those 10 races, Fellows only finished outside the Top-10 3 times. Now, he hasn't led a lap at this track since the 2007 race here, but after leading some laps at Road America earlier this year, he is definitely the road course ringer to beat on Saturday. If qualifying is rained-out, Fellows will miss the race if no one else withdraws, but like at Dover, expect several withdraws from S&P teams to get the non-S&P teams into the field if qualifying happened to be rained out.
The Cup-regular driver to beat? There's two: Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch. Kyle Busch will always be the one to beat in any Nationwide race he enters, needs no explanation on his history. Kurt Busch is subbing for Brad Keselowski this weekend in the #22 Ruby Tuesday / Discount Tire Dodge, and Kurt has a good history at Watkins Glen for the Nationwide Series. Now granted, he has only 2 races at this track for the NNS, but he finished 1st and 3rd in those two races, which he lead a good portion of laps in those two races. So look for him to play a major factor in the final laps. Where's Carl Edwards? Well, the past road course races have not gone well for the RFR teams. The 60 always seems to find a issue with the car about a quarter of the way in the race, and they are unable to make their way back in the field. And I have a feeling it'll happen once again this weekend.
The Nationwide-regular to beat, I'll say Reed Sorenson. I'm not saying he'll get the win this weekend, but Sorenson will be the Nationwide-regular to beat on Saturday.
Drivers that'll be doing double-duty for the Watkins Glen race: Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch (replacing Brad Keselowski in NNS), Carl Edwards, Paul Menard, Jimmie Johnson (driving the #7 "Jimmie Johnson's Anything with an Engine" Chevy), Ron Fellows, and Andrew Ranger (will be making his Cup debut this weekend. And, according to some NASCAR writers on Twitter, if there is rain at any point during this race, NASCAR will let the drivers run on rain tires.
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