WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – The famed seven-turn Watkins Glen International has had numerous thrilling finishes over the years. Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen was added to the list thanks to an epic battle to the finish between Chris Buescher and Shane van Gisbergen.
After executing the strategy right, Buescher sailed to a lead north of four seconds. Then, a caution flew for Harrison Burton, blowing a tire and having the carcass cover the track. All that hard work was erased.
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Buescher cleared the field, with rookie Carson Hocevar lining up to his outside during the next two restarts. Ultimately, the race was sent to overtime for a multi-car incident in the esses.
“I sure did like it being four seconds out front and cruising to victory, that sure seemed a lot easier,” Buescher said. “A little bit wilder at the end to have caution after caution was certainly frustrating.”
On the overtime restart, van Gisbergen lined up inside the second row and, while entering Turn 1, moved Buescher up the track to take the lead. The race for the win was on.
Van Gisbergen scooted away from Buescher for the next lap, but Buescher noticed he was reeling the No. 16 Chevrolet back in coming to the white flag. He knew passing a road course ace would be a tall order.
“We went up through the esses and I saw him hanging on to it, really loose,” Buescher said. “I went to a point where I wasn’t really comfortable at my entry marker into the Bus Stop, and I think he was still going. I had a feeling something big was going to happen and sure enough, he had that big slide.”
The No. 16 car went wide in the inner loop, clipping the grass. That allowed Buescher to cross over to the inside of van Gisbergen entering the carousel where the two collided. Buescher escaped with the lead, snapping a 37-race winless streak dating back to the 2023 regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway.
“I knew when he got that spot on us on that last restart that it was going to be tricky to get back by him,” Buescher explained. “Wanted to make sure we stayed in the hunt and drove the thing hard and kept the pressure on him and made him realize that we were still there and it wasn’t going to be a cruise away. I think that was the ticket to make sure that you get other drivers looking up in their mirror instead of looking forward and it’s a good old-fashioned hard battle at the end.
“There have been so many fantastic last one or two laps here at The Glen and I certainly feel like I’m going to go back and watch that one, and it’s going to feel like it’s going to add up with some of the old school Ambrose, Keselowski battles or a handful of others.”
Van Gisbergen expected the contact after giving it to Buescher on the restart. He considered the contact from Buescher fair.
“I did, because I gave [a bump],” van Gisbergen told NASCAR.com, walking up pit road. “Just a little tap to get position on him. I knew there was a chance he would try to get me back. I was pushing really hard on the entries, and I had a little wobble into the Bus Stop and it put me in too early and just clipped the grass.”
Compared to the overtime finish of Saturday’s Xfinity Series race, van Gisbergen thought it was clean.
“There’s a scale of it where it’s like that and then another scale where it’s like the Xfinity race yesterday which was just crap,” he added. “I think it can work well sometimes.”
Had van Gisbergen not made a mistake in the inner loop, Buescher wasn’t going to go as far as wrecking him for the victory. That would have been unnecessary in his book.
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But after scoring a pair of runner-up finishes this season, including being on the wrong side of the closest finish in NASCAR history at Kansas Speedway in May, Buescher was content with how it played out.
“I didn’t like losing the lead there, but I didn’t think it was dirty; it was very aggressive racing,” Buescher stated. “I’m not out here to flat out wreck somebody. He didn’t do anything to me that deserved something like that, but we were going to race hard for it and have a battle all the way to the finish.”
After the race, van Gisbergen congratulated Buescher on the hard-fought win in Victory Lane. There was zero bad blood between the two drivers.
“I didn’t feel like there was anything that was dirty about it,” Buescher noted of his pass. “I didn’t expect him coming over to be mad about anything.
“On that note, I think that’s the one guy out here that’s bigger than me. So if there’s that moment where I feel like he is mad coming over, I better take note, right? Just on the flip side, I’m sure some others don’t like seeing me.”
A good pat on the back was all that was needed.