I’m off to one of the most historic race tracks in America for the third round of the North American Endurance Cup: the 6 Hours of the Glen. Watkins Glen is one of the toughest, most unforgiving circuits on the United SportsCar schedule, and we’ll see who wins—and who eats the pastel blue wall.
Much of the reason why Watkins Glen is so tough lies in the iconic blue wall that lines the track. The photo above is from a NASCAR race last year, but let’s just say that MC Hammer said it best on this one. The blue barriers are close to the track and nowhere near as soft as my matching blue bunny.
The resulting races can be a tad unforgiving, as these racers in last year’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge support race found out.
What will I be up to this weekend? The usual: trying to find interesting stories to tell, Googling “Tim Hortons Watkins Glen, NY” until delicious Timbits are in my mouth, wandering all around one of the best racetracks in the country and possibly sitting down with some recent Le Mans GTE Pro winners for a chat.
This weekend is going to be fantastic, as it’s a historic track everybody loves, one of the flagship NAEC events (read: more entrants than your usual United SportsCar weekend, as some teams only show up for the NAEC), and comes with awesome support races, too.
CTSCC will be here with a brand new car, the Ford Shelby GT350R-C. Ford GT whiz kids Multimatic will be running the new team, who seem to be testing the IMSA-sanctioned waters before they dive in with a TUSC GT effort. We may be losing Holden vs. Ford in V8 Supercars as A Thing, but given that the Stevenson Motorsports Camaro Z/28.Rs have been pretty dominant so far this season, we’ll at least have an American counterpart in CTSCC.
Stevenson driver and ninja wizard who seems to be everywhere in everything at once (seriously, is he a time lord or something?) Andrew Davis had this to say to IMSA of the new Ford entry:
Having the new Ford makes what was already a very competitive series even more competitive. We’re certainly on a roll, and it’s also nice to have the added momentum of being the defending race winner. We recently had the opportunity to test side by side with the new Mustang at The Glen. It’s a nice looking car, and we’re looking forward to racing them.
Translation from polite PR-ese: bring it.
Either way, we’ve got to track down the new Ford and climb all over it if we can. Billy Johnson and Scott Maxwell will share Ford #15, and Austin Cindric and Jade Buford will be in Ford #158.
Joining CTSCC alongside the main show is Prototype Lites, Porsche GT3 Cup USA and Lamborghini Super Trofeo. Lambos! Holy crap, Lambos!
I could tell it was going to be a good weekend after I spotted one of The Racers Group’s trailers on the freeway yesterday. “Hi!” said my completely sane inner monologue. “I wonder where you’re going? Hey, when you come back for Lime Rock, do you mind picking up a Porsche along the way and dropping it off in Pennsyltucky? Because that would save me a really long tow...”
But I digress. This weekend is going to be awesome.
Can’t make it to the track yourself? IMSA.tv streams most of its support races and will be streaming qualifying for the 6 Hours of the Glen as well. The TV broadcast for the main TUSC event is split in thirds between Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, and you can find the full schedule and broadcast information here.
Photo credits: Ford (Shelby!), Getty Images (everything else)
Contact the author at stef.schrader@jalopnik.com.