Practice report
NASCAR Cup Watkins Glen
Chase Elliott leads the way in final Cup practice at the Glen
Could Chase Elliott be poised for a second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International?
Jim Utter
Edited: Aug 3, 2019, 6:22 PM
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In the final minutes of Saturday’s final practice session, Elliott jumped to the top of the speed chart with an average lap of 126.901 mph – nearly a mile-and-a-half faster than second-place Martin Truex Jr. (125.418 mph).
Matt DiBenedetto ended up third (125.391 mph), Michael McDowell fourth and Kyle Busch completed the top-five.
Elliott picked up his first career Cup Series victory last year with his win at Watkins Glen, holding off Truex.
“Everybody wants to talk about last year and that’s great. I’m glad that last year happened, for sure. I’m proud of it, but we celebrated it when it was time to celebrate it and now is not really the time to celebrate it,” Elliott said.
“We had our time to do that in between here and wherever we went after that, and we did it and had plenty of it. It’s out of my system and it’s time to come back and try to run good. I feel like we had an OK first practice, but we have some work to do.
“I think it’s just dialing things in and it’s tough. Everybody is really close.”
Rounding out the top 10 in practice were Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Erik Jones.
Kyle Busch had the best average lap speed (124.535 mph) among the drivers who ran at least 10 consecutive laps. Hamlin and Ryan Blaney were second and third, respectively, in that category.
Read Also:
- Bowman tops first Cup practice at WGI, near-miss for Elliott
- 2019 Watkins Glen/Eldora NASCAR weekend schedules
Cla # Driver Manufacturer Laps Time Gap Interval Mph 1 9 
Chase Elliott Chevrolet 24 1'09.503 126.901 2 19 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 19 1'10.325 0.822 0.822 125.418 3 95 Matt DiBenedetto Toyota 25 1'10.340 0.837 0.015 125.391 4 34 Michael McDowell Ford 18 1'10.414 0.911 0.074 125.259 5 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 30 1'10.518 1.015 0.104 125.074 6 14 Clint Bowyer Ford 20 1'10.580 1.077 0.062 124.965 7 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 28 1'10.682 1.179 0.102 124.784 8 24 William Byron Chevrolet 24 1'10.717 1.214 0.035 124.722 9 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 16 1'10.720 1.217 0.003 124.717 10 20 Erik Jones Toyota 22 1'10.757 1.254 0.037 124.652 11 12 Ryan Blaney Ford 19 1'10.778 1.275 0.021 124.615 12 37 Chris Buescher Chevrolet 19 1'10.811 1.308 0.033 124.557 13 88 Alex Bowman Chevrolet 27 1'10.888 1.385 0.077 124.422 14 41 
Daniel Suarez Ford 22 1'10.949 1.446 0.061 124.315 15 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 28 1'10.957 1.454 0.008 124.301 16 42 Kyle Larson Chevrolet 25 1'10.967 1.464 0.010 124.283 17 2 Brad Keselowski Ford 27 1'10.979 1.476 0.012 124.262 18 1 Kurt Busch Chevrolet 18 1'11.027 1.524 0.048 124.178 19 22 Joey Logano Ford 29 1'11.144 1.641 0.117 123.974 20 13 Ty Dillon Chevrolet 16 1'11.260 1.757 0.116 123.772 21 4 Kevin Harvick Ford 20 1'11.298 1.795 0.038 123.706 22 21 Paul Menard Ford 19 1'11.323 1.820 0.025 123.663 23 8 Daniel Hemric Chevrolet 21 1'11.432 1.929 0.109 123.474 24 10 Aric Almirola Ford 22 1'11.490 1.987 0.058 123.374 25 6 Ryan Newman Ford 19 1'11.548 2.045 0.058 123.274 26 96 Parker Kligerman Toyota 11 1'11.672 2.169 0.124 123.061 27 47 Ryan Preece Chevrolet 21 1'11.756 2.253 0.084 122.917 28 38 David Ragan Ford 16 1'11.805 2.302 0.049 122.833 29 36 Matt Tifft Ford 24 1'12.159 2.656 0.354 122.230 30 43 Darrell Wallace Jr. Chevrolet 17 1'12.212 2.709 0.053 122.140 31 3 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 18 1'12.236 2.733 0.024 122.100 32 32 Corey Lajoie Ford 12 1'12.607 3.104 0.371 121.476 33 51 Cody Ware Chevrolet 8 1'14.426 4.923 1.819 118.507 34 77 Justin Haley Chevrolet 3 1'16.325 6.822 1.899 115.558
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