WATKINS GLEN, NY – Chris Buescher took advantage of a rare mistake made by Shane van Gisbergen en route to winning the Go Bowling at The Glen.

When road course expert, Gisbergen took the white flag as the leader, it looked as if he was going to hold on for the win, but as he and Buescher raced through the bus stop, the New Zealander missed his mark and opened the door for Buscher who passed by. Throughout the final corners, Gisbergen was there, but he wasn’t able to make a move, and Buescher went on to win his first race of the season and his first at Watkins Glen International.

“Just, man, to stay right there with him, that was the spot that he was better than us,” Buescher said. “He missed it. He missed it, so I tried to cross over. Went to cut and just hard race there. Just such an awesome finish. To be that good for so much at the end of the race, all race, to get a win, it’s good. We came here to be a spoiler.”

Buescher just missed out on making the 2024 NASCAR Playoffs, and on Sunday, that was obviously a talking point, but the Texas native was just thrilled to finally breakthrough on a road course.

“We would have liked to have won a couple of weeks ago, but this is huge,” Buescher said. “This is such a big win for us. Everybody at RFK has worked so hard. To finally get a road course win, man, we’ve been so close so many times. To finally pull that off, it’s fantastic.

Gisbergen ran a strong race and even finished second in Stage 2, but the final lap hiccup cost Kaulig Racing the win. Following the finish, Gisbergen was thrilled as always to have an opportunity to compete, but he was disappointed in the outcome.

“Driver error,” Gisbergen said. “I knew Chris was really going to send it and push me if he could get there. As I turned and got a bit loose and clipped the inside wall and driver error. I’m gutted.

“WeatherTech was really good. The race was awesome with Ross (Chastain) and Chris (Buescher) and the others at the end. I’m gutted we couldn’t get it, but I had a lot of fun, but I’m pretty angry at myself.”

Carson Hocevar earned a career high of third on Sunday. Polesitter Ross Chastain finished third, followed by Zane Smith who earned his second career top-five finish. Chase Briscoe finished sixth, and rounding out the top-10 was Michael McDowell, Corey LaJoie, Ryan Preece and Austin Cindric.

Martin Truex Jr. won Stage 1, and Chastain won Stage 2.

The caution came out on seven occasions for 21 laps, and throughout the day, many of the NASCAR Playoff contenders were involved in accidents.

The action started early on the first lap of the race, when Kyle Busch was sent spinning through the Bus Stop. NASCAR Playoff contenders, Ryan Blaney, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin and more were involved. Blaney was towed back to the garage, and since he wasn’t able to drive back, he was forced to retire from the event, finishing last.

“I don’t even know what happened, honestly,” Blaney said. “We stacked up and I caught someone in the left front and it completely broke the steering. I don’t know if we could have fixed it.”

Playoff contender, Daniel Suarez spin and got caught in the sand trap in Turn 6 to bring out the final caution of Stage 2. Suarez finished 13^th.

“We went through a lot today,” Suarez said. “The No. 99 Freeway Insurance Chevy was pretty fast, especially on the long runs. I thought we were able to drive through the field once we had lost some track position, but it was very difficult to pass… way more difficult than what I anticipated. And then we lost a wheel, and from that, we were just trying to recover. I’m very proud of this team for not giving up; doing a good job at executing and going to fight right off the bat.”

On Lap 48, contact with Brad Keselowski sent Hamlin hard into the Turn 2 guardrail. Hamlin had an awful day as he finished 23^rd.

“Great effort by this FedEx Toyota team to keep us in it,” Hamlin said. “Obviously the car is just destroyed, so to finish 23rd – I guess there is a positive. We were certainly in a worst spot most of the day, and luckily, we had some attrition there at the end that helped us out.”

Despite two consecutive bad weekends, Hamlin is confident the team will perform well at Bristol and advance to the Round of 12.

“I feel like we can go there and win,” Hamlin said. “We are going to an oval – back to a normal track. We can control our own destiny there.”

A scary crash occurred on Lap 85, when Keselowski and William Byron crashed in Turn 2. Byron’s car got completely off the ground and dug into Keselowski’s left rear window area. Both drivers drove away. Keselowski finished 26^th, and Byron finished 34^th.

“I am not sure exactly what happened, but I was trying to get to the outside of the No. 22 (Joey Logano) and the No. 6 (Keselowski) kind of hooked back to the left. Glad we got some points in Stage two, that was helpful,” Byron said. “We just have to go to Bristol and have a good weekend. This was just kind of a nightmare weekend.”

The final crash of the race involved NASCAR Playoff content, Tyler Reddick. As the field raced through Turn 2, the pack stacked up, and Reddick crashed, collecting Busch. Reddick finished 27^th, and Busch finished 30^th.

Following the race, the NASCAR Playoffs drastically changed. Christopher Bell leads the Playoffs by 3 points, followed by Austin Cindric (-3), Joey Logano (-5), Alex Bowman (-5), Daniel Suarez (-10), Tyler Reddick (-16), Chase Elliott (-16), Ryan Blaney (-17), Kyle Larson (-20), William Byron (-21), Chase Briscoe (-40), Ty Gibbs (-40), Denny Hamlin (-46), Brad Keselowski (-52), Martin Truex Jr. (-54) and Harrison Burton (-60).

The final race of the Round of 16 will be held at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 21. Live coverage of the Bass Bro Shops Night Race will broadcast at on USA at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Photo Credit: Jennie Mae Lingle/TheFourthTurn.com