Remember When: Watkins Glen Had One of the Craziest NASCAR Finishes
As we head into this weekend's NASCAR Cup Series Go Bowling at The Glen, let's turn the clock back 12 years to revisit the wild finish to the 2012 Finger Lakes 355 at The Glen, a race that played host to one of the wildest finishes in NASCAR Cup Series history.
Kyle Busch had broken out to a comfortable race lead and was fully in control of the race with seven laps to go, but then the straightforward race started getting a little nutty. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was the championship point leader heading into the race, lost control of his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet on the exit of the inner loop while running in the 10th position.
"I just got in the corner and made a mistake, that's pretty much all there was to it," Earnhardt said about the spin after the race. "Just overdriving the car."
Earnhardt's spin would not bring out a caution, and as Earnhardt hit pit road for a fresh set of tires, and then re-entered the race track, it still looked very much like Busch would be cruising to a race win. The driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing M&M's Toyota Camry still maintained a lead of more than 2.1 seconds on Marcos Ambrose, who was sitting second with four laps to go, and Brad Keselowski was just behind him in third.
But with two laps remaining, every car on the track appeared to all of a sudden snap loose all at the same time. As Ambrose slipped out of line, Keselowski got by him for the runner-up spot, and as Busch continued to kick sideways on his way to the white flag, Keselowski and Ambrose closed in fast.
Dale Jarrett and the ESPN announce team began to question if Busch was running out of gas, had a tire going down, or if there was a problem with his car. Heading into the esses on the final lap, Keselowski made contact with Busch, which sent the driver of the No. 18 car spinning out of the lead. Busch's bid to win was over, but the race for the win was just getting started.
Keselowski, who had a tire rub from the contact with Busch, skidded through the bus stop, but Ambrose would do the same, and both drivers would kick up grass and dirt as they went off track on the exit of the bus stop.
Heading into the inner loop, Ambrose gunned it up to try to catch Keselowski, but his No. 9 car lost traction, and he nearly spun. After saving it, Keselowski appeared to have a problem on the exit of the inner loop, and Ambrose nudged his way back to the lead.
Heading into Turn 7, Keselowski would overcook his brakes and would make more contact with Ambrose. Keselowski would get alongside Ambrose in Turn 8 but would slide off of the Turn, and Ambrose would cross the finish line to score the race win, the second and final win of his NASCAR Cup Series career. As Ambrose was collecting the checkered flag, Jeff Gordon, a championship contender, spun out behind them.
It was a wild finish, the type where the hair stands up on the back of your neck, and as the drivers were working on getting back to pit road on their cooldown lap, the ESPN announce team, led by Allen Bestwick were confused as to what they had just witnessed.
What happened to Busch's No. 18 car to allow Ambrose and Keselowski to close their two second gap in one lap? What was going on with Keselowski and Ambrose? As the questions were flying, Vince Welch was able to catch up with Kyle Busch's crew chief Dave Rogers, who was able to lend some explanation about what had just taken place.
"Well, the 47 broke. You can see him, he just went by smoking," Rogers explained to Welch. "He broke, he let oil down all over the track. And we just got caught in the oil, and allowed the 2 car to get to us, and the 2 car raced us the way he raced us. Good car. Kyle did a good effort."
Rogers would emphasize that there was nothing wrong with the No. 18 car, which led to the collapse over the last couple of laps of the race.
"No, there's just oil all over the race track, and it's hard to go," Rogers stated with disappointment in his voice.
In victory lane, an elated Ambrose couldn't believe that he came out on top of what was a strange final lap duel at Watkins Glen. Ambrose says the first sign of oil on the track that he noticed came with two laps to go when he slipped on track to allow Keselowski to overtake him for the second spot.
"Well, I was the first one to slip on the oil, when I let Brad pass," Ambrose said. "And it was just getting worse and worse, and you could tell the car was staying out there because the oil was moving around the race track. And you just take your chances, you know, you have to commit at that point of the race, and bad luck to Kyle. Great racing though with Kyle and Brad. I mean, they're the two best guys to race with, just awesome fun. That's the way racing should be, and we got the No. 9 Stanley Ford into victory lane."
Ambrose had conceded that Busch had the race won as he had used up his tires trying to knife his way back through the field after his pit strategy went awry due to the way the cautions fell throughout the race.
"Yeah, I had just burned everything up. Our strategy was to do three stops. All of a sudden, that caution came out, we had to pit and came out ninth or 10th or something, and I just used my stuff up coming through," Ambrose said. "And you just gotta take Lady Luck when she strikes, and it was our day."
The oil on the track was so severe that Keselowski truly believed it was Busch in front of him who was dropping the oil down on the track.
"18 was leaking fluid, something fierce. And the track just had no grip at all. And when I caught him, he had leaked really back into [Turn] 1 and missed the corner because he was slipping in his own oil," Keselowski said. "And I got under him going into [Turn] 2, and we all slipped in his oil. And I hit him, and it spun him. I mean, I hate to say there was nothing I could do, but there was literally nothing I could do. It was just one big giant oil slick under his car, and I feel bad about that."
While he felt bad about spinning Busch from the lead, Keselowski's face lit up as he described the final lap racing against Ambrose.
"Then it just came down to running a whole lap against Marcos. And I got in the oil and would slip up. He'd get by me and then he'd get in the oil and slip up, and I'd get by him. Just really good, hard racing. Some beating and banging. I think that's the way racing should be," Keselowski proclaimed. "It's great to race against guys like Marcos who you can rub on, lean on, and they don't lose their cool and just intentionally wreck you. That's what racing is supposed to be, right there."
Jimmie Johnson would finish in third behind Ambrose and Keselowski, while Clint Bowyer and Sam Hornish Jr. would round out the top-five finishers in the race.
Busch would come home in seventh despite being spun into the grass in the esses on the final lap. Busch would exit his car and bolt from the track without granting an interview to the ESPN broadcast crew.
14 races after the wild finish at Watkins Glen, Keselowski would go on to collect the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series championship in a fierce championship battle with Johnson.
Earnhardt Jr. would go on to finish 28th, and as a result, would drop from the points lead to fourth in the championship standings. Earnhardt didn't mince his words after the race about how he felt about the race not being yellow-flagged on the final lap due to the excess amounts of oil on the racing surface.
"...I got back out on the track, and then there was oil everywhere from somebody, everywhere. You couldn't see it, but it was everywhere," Earnhardt explained. "So, you didn't know where to run. I saw the leaders were coming, and I was trying to get out of the way and they were in oil, I was in oil, and then I watched everything that happened in front of me. It was just a bad deal. I think the track shouldn't have oil on it. I don't know. It was a tough deal, I guess that they let it finish out with all of that oil on the track. I don't really like that because it was a bad ugly finish at the end."
Earnhardt would enter the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs (then known as the Chase for the Cup) seventh in the championship standings. However, Earnhardt would sustain a concussion in a hard crash during a Goodyear tire test at Kansas Speedway, and would attempt to ride out the injury through the Playoffs.
A crash at Talladega, which resulted in a 30th-place finish led to increased concussion symptoms, which led Earnhardt to step out of his No. 88 car for two races during the Playoffs. As a result, he would finish the year 12th in the championship rankings.
Toby Christie is the Editor-in-Chief of Racing America. He has 15 years of experience as a motorsports journalist and has been with Racing America since 2023.