The last five Cup Series races at Watkins Glen have featured a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in victory lane. This is a staggering amount of recent success at the track for the organization, but what is the reason for it?
"Obviously, Hendrick Motorsports on road courses has been really good for a long time, but Chase (Elliott) really got a hold of Watkins Glen and kind of developed all our stuff to be really good there kind of right off the bat," Alex Bowman said ahead of the playoffs.
Elliott has two wins at Watkins Glen and two other top-five finishes in his last four starts there. His first career Cup victory at the New York road course was in 2018 and then he won there again in 2019.
NASCAR did not compete at Watkins Glen in 2020.
Kyle Larson then followed with wins in 2021 and 2022. William Byron is the most recent winner at the track with a trip to victory lane last season.
Bowman points to Elliott as the foundation for this success, but the 2020 Cup Series champion pushes back a bit. While he acknowledges the impact he has had during his time with HMS, he also indicates that the secret to success is collaboration.
"We had a test (at Watkins Glen), it was probably my rookie year (in 2016) or shortly after that," Elliott said in response to a question from AltDriver. "...It was already a good road course package before I got there, so it was not like we just created something out of thin air.
"We had a good basis, but there was one particular test that we developed a good package for, and we built off of that."
As Elliott explained, extensive collaboration between all of the drivers and teams at Hendrick Motorsports then took place and contributed to the ongoing winning streak.
This collaboration has continued into the Next Gen era and played a role in another Hendrick Motorsports driver getting his first win on a road course five years after Elliott got his first.
"I feel like it started two years before that when we had a test there," Byron said about his first road course win. "We tested in 2022 with the Next Gen car; had a really good two-day test.
"That really kind of contributed to a lot of the setup items for the company there and built a good baseline."
A battery issue disrupted Byron's efforts during the race at Watkins Glen in 2022, which Larson won after a late battle with Elliott and Kaulig Racing's AJ Allmendinger. However, he was able to deliver a race-winning performance in 2023.
"Fortunately, the baseline setup we built had good benefits when we unloaded in 2023," Byron said. "We were really fast off the truck. In the race, we were a top-three car. It was just about trying to get out front and have good pit sequences under green."
The Hendrick Motorsports drivers have worked together in the past on the road course package. Three of them have celebrated wins at Watkins Glen since 2018. Now, the quartet will return with much higher stakes.
All four HMS drivers are in the playoffs and in contention for spots in the Round of 12. Larson is 15 points above the elimination line due to a crash at Atlanta last weekend. Byron is 33 points above the cutline, Bowman is 27 points above the cutline, and Elliott is 24 points above the cutline.
If the Hendrick winning streak continues, one of these drivers will automatically move on to the Round of 12. The other three will head to the Round of 16 elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway looking for more points and a win.