Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen Race Preview

Watkins Glen International -- 08/8/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Tuesday Aug 3 2010 6:18am

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series heads to Watkins Glen, N.Y., this week for a run at Watkins Glen International, a 2.45-mile road course featuring 11 turns (including right-handers) with a variety of banking ranging from 6 degrees to 10 degrees. Only twice a year does the series visit the twisty road courses at Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y., and when it does, NASCAR handicappers must adjust to the fact that many of the regular Sprint Cup front runners just don't run very well on road courses, and some of the typically slow drivers jump way up in value on these tracks. In addition, we must also ponder the value of the ringers—i.e., the road-course specialists imported into NASCAR just for these races.

As always, we must attempt to gauge the Glen's predictability as well. On the down side, the historical data is relatively thin because we have only the two 2009 road-course races and the June race at Sonoma to evaluate (there's little point in looking at any oval-track data this week, or any older data). In addition, the race is certain to feature a fair number of wrecks, and road-course wrecks have a tendency to collect other cars, a tendency the move to double-file restarts seems to exacerbate.

On the other hand, Weather.com's forecast at press time calls for good weather at the Glen this week, with consistent temps, mostly sunny skies, and almost no chance of rain, so we should get good practice and qualifying data.

All in all, I think it's safe to rate the Glen's predictability a little below average. Sprint Cup bettors therefore need better odds than they do on more predictable tracks to remain profitable.

Handicapping Watkins Glen
I analyzed the practice, qualifying and race data from the 2009 Watkins Glen race and the June race at Sonoma. I then merged the results of those two analysis, making sure I weighted the numbers toward the Sonoma race because it was recent and the 09' Glen data is old. Finally, I looked over my notes from the Sonoma race and tweaked my rankings accordingly.

Here's my early week top 10:

1. Marcos Ambrose
2. Jimmie Johnson
3. Greg Biffle
4. Kasey Kahne
5. Juan Pablo Montoya
6. Jeff Gordon
7. Jamie McMurray
8. A.J. Allmendinger
9. Kevin Harvick
10. Boris Said

Ambrose, of course, would've won at Sonoma this year if not for his colossal error in the closing laps (he managed to lose spots under caution when he turned off his car and then couldn't refire it right away). The 48 team has clearly worked very hard on its road-course program, so Johnson should challenge for the win as well.

I am a bit surprised to see Biffle, Allmendinger and Said rating this high, but that's what the numbers say. Keep your eye on Said in particular during Friday's and Saturday's preliminaries. Word is he's stepping into Red Bull's 83 car this week, and that should be a decent piece of equipment for a ringer.

Stay tuned for an update following the preliminaries on Friday and Saturday.

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