2012 Duel At Watkins Glen, 10 Years Later

It has been a decade since one of the greatest finishes NASCAR has ever produced.

In 2012, Australian Marcos Ambrose returned to Watkins Glen International to defend his title of NASCAR Cup Series race winner, the site he’d scored his first career victory at a year earlier. That previous race didn’t have the victory battle it had the following year, as a strikingly violent crash involving a flipping David Reutimann and various other last-lap chaos brought out a caution and froze the field. Ambrose was out front, followed by Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch (we’ll hear more from them later).

After years of close-but-no-cigar on Cup road courses, Ambrose finally secured his first career win with crew chief Todd Parrott congratulating him with a smirk-inducing refrain:

“Congratulations there, Ambrose — you are officially a winner in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series,” he said, despite it having been almost four years since the renaming of NASCAR’s premier division. “Good job!”

Almost exactly one year later — 362 days, to be exact — the Cup Series was back in New York. The race sponsor had changed from Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips to Finger Lakes, but little appeared different besides that: the car bodies were the same, the track was as winding as ever … and it came down to the exact same top three with two laps left as the year prior.

Coming to two laps remaining, Busch sat two seconds up on Ambrose and Keselowski. That’s not an eternity like it is at other tracks, especially with a road-course ace like Ambrose in second, but he was under fire from Keselowski, who was breathing down the No. 9’s neck.

Keselowski ran tighter through the bus stop and dove inside Ambrose for second, and after crossing the line things closed up between the top three. Busch went wide in turn 1 as the lead trio fanned out in the runoff, and moving down early sent the No. 18 spinning off Keselowski’s bumper in the esses.

Busch nosed up to the guardrail as Keselowski and Ambrose sped by, the contact allowing Ambrose to close on the No. 2. Keselowski had some slight damage from the incident and smoke trailed from the Miller Lite Dodge heading down the back straight, but he retained his lead through the bus stop as both bounced through the grass. Ambrose saw his window and took it, sending his Stanley Tools Ford into the carousel as Keselowski appeared significantly slower. The No. 9 had to back…