{"id":71134,"date":"2025-08-09T23:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/71134\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T23:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T23:53:11","slug":"watkins-glen-starting-lineup-ryan-blaney-claims-nascar-cup-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/71134\/","title":{"rendered":"Watkins Glen starting lineup: Ryan Blaney claims NASCAR Cup pole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. \u2014 A year ago at Watkins Glen, Ryan Blaney didn\u2019t complete a lap. Sunday, he could lead the opening lap after winning the pole at the 2.45-mile road course.<\/p>\n<p>Blaney earned his second pole of the Cup season and will lead the field to the green in Sunday\u2019s race \u2014 coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. ET on USA Network \u2014 with a lap of 122.568 mph.<\/p>\n<p>Shane van Gisbergen, who has won the past three Cup road course events, qualified second with a lap of 122.512 mph. He had won the pole for the past three road course races. <\/p>\n<p>Chase Briscoe (122.505 mph) will start third, followed by Ross Chastain (122.362) and Kyle Busch (122.255).<\/p>\n<p>Last year at Watkins Glen was miserable for Blaney, who struggled in practice and qualifying and was collected in a first-lap crash that ended his race. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe worked really hard at this place because it was a rough weekend last year,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cThe two days were brutal. Everyone\u2019s confidence was pretty down leaving it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"Link\" aria-label=\"How to watch Sunday\u2019s Cup race at Watkins Glen: Start time, TV info and weather\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nascar\/news\/how-to-watch-sundays-cup-race-at-watkins-glen-international-start-time-tv-info-and-weather-august-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" alt=\"NASCAR: Go Bowling at The Glen\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1754783591_864_\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Chris Buescher seeks his second consecutive win at Watkins Glen, while Shane van Gisbergen goes for his fourth win in a row on a street or road course.<\/p>\n<p>Last year\u2019s woes made preparing for this weekend challenging.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t have any race notes to talk about,\u201d Blaney said. &#8220;&#8230; that was a little bit difficult. So we just really looked at practice and where we struggled at in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also Saturday, points leader William Byron (122.135 mph) will start 10th. Chris Buescher, who won this race a year ago and enters this weekend holding the final playoff spot, will start 12th after a lap of 122.051 mph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. \u2014 A year ago at Watkins Glen, Ryan Blaney didn\u2019t complete a lap. Sunday, he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-71134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}