Elliott on pole for race at Glen
Chase Elliott won the NASCAR Cup pole on Saturday at Watkins Glen International in New York, edging Hendrick Motorsports teammate
Kyle Larson for the top spot.
Elliott, a two-time winner at The Glen, turned a fast lap of 1 minute, 10.477 seconds around the 2.45-mile natural terrain road course. Larson, who won last year’s race at The Glen, finished in 1:10.516, just ahead of
Michael McDowell.
“I’m really proud of our team,” Elliott said. “We’ll try to give them a good run [Sunday].”
William Byron was fourth and Tyler Reddick, winner of the past two road races on the
Cup schedule, will start fifth as Chevrolet took four of the top five spots.
AJ Allmendinger was sixth, followed by Chris Buescher, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suárez and
Kyle Busch.
Ryan Blaney and
Martin Truex Jr., battling for the final playoff spot with just two races left in the regular season, will start side-by-side in Row 13.
“Definitely not the day we wanted, for sure,” Truex said. “We’ll just keep working on it, battle and fight through it and get all we can like we always do.”
Former Formula One champion Kimi Raikkonen, who came out of retirement for the chance to enter NASCAR’S top series, qualified 27th in his Cup debut. Raikkonen is driving for TrackHouse Racing and its Project91 program designed to raise NASCAR’s international exposure.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s
Christopher Bell blew the engine during practice in the No. 20 Toyota and will start at the back of the 39-car field.
XFINITY SERIES
Larson held off Allmendinger to win the Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen. Larson was riding in third behind leader Ty Gibbs and Byron when the two leaders made contact in the tricky bus stop with under five laps to go and spun off to the side, leaving a clear path for Larson to zip through.
Allmendinger could never get close enough to mount a serious challenge over the final laps.
Gibbs and Byron dominated the race until that point and Byron slammed the No. 54 of Gibbs after the altercation. It was Larson’s first road course win in the series. Sammy Smith finished third.
INDYCAR SERIES
Helio Castroneves will return next year for a 26th full season in IndyCar. He has signed a one-year contract extension with Meyer Shank Racing. The additional season was announced ahead of Saturday night’s race outside of St. Louis on the final oval on this year’s IndyCar schedule.
Castroneves has been outstanding at World Wide Technology Raceway and is hoping for a big finish to mark what has been an inconsistent season with MSR.
But the results haven’t mattered so much as Castroneves has proven to be a sponsor’s dream and gives the team an automatic shot to win the Indianapolis 500.