Six things to know about the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen
Watkins Glen International renews its partnership with endurance racing this weekend as the Schuyler County road course hosts the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen.
Four days of practices and races begin June 22 and continue through June 25, culminating with Sunday's Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen, an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series event.
The weekend will also feature the Michelin Pilot Challenge, MX-5 Cup, Porsche Carrera Cup and Lamborghini Super Trofeo.
Six things to know heading into the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen.
Schedule, TV, tickets
The Six Hours of The Glen gets started at 10:40 a.m. Sunday. USA Network will televise live from 2 to 5 p.m. Peacock will provide flag-to-flag TV coverage in the United States while IMSA.com will carry the event outside the country.
Six Hours qualifying is set for 1:45 p.m. Saturday on the 3.4-mile, 11-turn course.
Friday's races: Mazda MX-5 race No. 1 at 12:20 p.m., Porsche Carrera Cup race No. 1 at 1:25 and Lamborghini Trofeo race No. 1 at 2:25.
Saturday's races: Mazda MX-5 race No. 2 at 10:05 a.m., Lamborghini Trofeo race No. 2 at 11:10, Porsche Carrera Cup race No. 2 at 12:20 p.m. and the 2-hour IMSA Pilot Challenge at 3:45 p.m.
Tickets are available through theglen.com.
Taylor, Albuquerque defending champions
Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque won last year's Six Hours of The Glen in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05. They will be joined by co-driver Louis Deletraz in an Acura ARX-06 for Konica Minolta this year.
Last year's event had a delay of just over an hour because of lightning in the area and Albuquerque passed Tom Blomqvist for the lead on the outside after the restart and held Blomqvist off over the final laps.
Blomqvist and Colin Braun will team in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Acura.
Potential record-tying number of cars
The preliminary entry list for the Six Hours of The Glen included 57 cars across five classes. That would match the track's six hours record, set in 1984 when Al Holbert, Derek Bell and Jim Adams won.
The entry list includes nine cars in the top Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, nine in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), 10 in Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3), nine in GT Daytona Pro (GTD Pro) and 20 in GT Daytona (GTD).
"It’s going to be very interesting and eventful again for sure because when I see 56 (other) cars in a track that’s so small, it’s only five cars less than at Le Mans and at Le Mans it’s three times bigger than Watkins Glen," Albuquerque said. "So it’s going to be crazy. It’s always great racing there. I’m just excited to go there."
The six-hour length provides a mix of racing, said LMP3 driver Gar Robinson, part of a class victory at last year's race with Felipe Fraga and Kayvan Berlo.
"It’s a strange race for everybody I think," Robinson said. "It’s long enough to be an endurance race, but it’s also still short enough to kind of be considered a sprint race. You go from Sebring where it’s long stints and everything is pretty brutal on you, so you’re focused on how physical everything is. It’s a proper long endurance race and then The Glen is closer to a sprint race. The stints aren’t nearly as long and the track isn’t beating you up the entire time. It’s just a different animal."
WeatherTech features new top class
The Daytona Prototype international class was retired as top dog in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the end of last year's schedule. It was the final iteration of the DP class, which rolled out in 2003 at the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
The new Grand Touring Prototype now has the spotlight, with Watkins Glen the fifth race in the 11-race season schedule. The high-tech, cost-effective car made its debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona at the end of January. The new prototypes feature a standardized hybrid energy harvesting system and the nine cars in the series represent Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche. Lamborghini will be added in 2024.
The first four races have seen four different winning teams. Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais teamed for a win in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing Cadillac at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (California) in the most recent race May 14.
"I'm looking forward to bringing this new car, this new era, into Watkins Glen," said Felipe Nasr, who will join Matt Campbell in the No. 7 Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 in the GTP class. "It's always been fun. To every track we've been to, it's been pretty interesting to see the challenge. Different winners. So far we've had quite a challenging start of the season, but, hey, there's another opportunity ahead."
Teams came to The Glen for testing May 24 and 25.
Six Hours race big part of WGI's history
Watkins Glen's first six-hours race dates back to 1968, when Jacky Ickx and Lucien Bianchi teamed to win what was then a World Sportscar Championship event, the race's sanctioning body through 1981.
IMSA and The Glen partnered for the six-hours Camel Continental in 1984. Since 1996, the track has held six hours races every year but 1999 and 2020 (moved because of COVID). The race has been part of IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series since 2014 after the American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series merged. Prior to that, the Rolex Sports Car Series was featured in the Six Hours of The Glen each year since 2000.
Buffalo-based Sahlen Packing Company has been title sponsor since 2003.
"There is iconic tracks and they were born with that special characteristic that you can not reproduce and I think Watkins Glen is one of those," said Albuquerque, a native of Portugal. "What’s incredible about Watkins Glen as well I must say is normally when you resurface a circuit, it will lose a little bit of its characteristic. And somehow Watkins Glen, I think it made it better because that challenge of new asphalt, new grip, how it flows, there’s not really a proper very slow corner, stop and go. Even the hairpins, you can do like third or second gear. It has a great rhythm. I think that makes it special."
Farewell event for WGI President Michael Printup
Michael Printup, track president at NASCAR-owned Watkins Glen International since June of 2009, announced in late May he is retiring.
"I was running out of gas, I’ve got to be candid," Printup, 58, said. "And I’ve always promised myself I wouldn’t go in and do anything half-naked. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to be able to go out on a high, I guess. This team-up here has just done unbelievably well over the last 15 seasons, 14 years."
Printup's final day will be Monday. A Hot Dogs with the Prez event is scheduled for 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday at concession stand 5.
Follow Andrew Legare on Twitter: @SGAndrewLegare. You can also reach him at alegare@gannett.com. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Six things to know about the Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen
