With this championship set the way it is, something is going to happen at Watkins Glen. Its just too short and sharp a track for it not to happen.

Lap one through the Esses is about the most claustrophobic you can ever feel in a race car. Imagine if the start line at Bathurst was three quarters of the way up Mountain Straight. We’d be going across the top 3 wide. Car drivers are just crazy, absurd, mental, nuts, not normal…Well… You get the idea.

Watkins Glen has been an icon of American Road racing for a long time. It put V8 Supercars on the map for the NASCAR nuts when Ambrose won here in 2011. I hadn’t even heard of NASCAR then, boy has that changed now. Could someone in the field write their own story of Victory from obscurity?

When we got here last year, the series had just skipped over Round 4 from Road America due to the timing of an iRacing update. This year we’re going to be just over a week into one of the biggest changes to Supercars racing in the time we’ve been on the Gen 2 car!

New Damage Model, N-D-M. Three letters, big consequences. “That's not a big change, nah that's going to have no impact, you’re off your rocker”. I’m not, I’ve been clinically checked, and yes it will be a big change but not to the speed of the cars, more to the way the drivers go racing.

Last year’s race qualifying times were ridiculously close. A dead heat for 2nd on the grid, and the next driver only 2 thousandths of a second further back. Jarrad Filsell took pole last year and was the only driver comfortably clear in terms of the timings. Everyone else was hundredths apart. When your pole time was 1:07.250 there’s not many places to gain time, but certainly a bunch of places to lose it.

Fuel is going to be a big talking point as well. Filsell didn’t want to lead the opening stages of the race from pole position last year, and whenever you hear that from a driver it's a critical part of the race.

Expect a big draft train. We expected that at the Red Bull Ring, but the train broke up centred around drivers who were struggling on tires. At the Glen that won’t be as big of an issue. The draft will keep those drivers relevant for a longer period of time.

The other note from last year was the the 9ine5ive outfit had a very strong round both from qualifying and race pace. Dylan Rudd lead the way very early on, but ailed on the long run pace. Theoretically if the Speedcafe Lobs Esports crew have a bit better pace, this might be Dylan Rudd’s breakthrough round.

Race pace from Andrew Gilliam was very strong last year and he made up ground from 12th to just miss out on a podium. Gilliam has been looking fantastic of late and could he break through for a round win?

Righto, time for me to send out the commentators' curse on a few people. What do I think is going to happen?

My predictions

Trans Tasman Racing will put 2 cars on the podium. - Jake Burton won last year from Madison Down. I expect their pace to be strong, but this is my least confident prediction.

We will see at least one safety car. My gut is telling me we will see two. - New Damage Model and limited time on that prior to this round says we will see something new, some kind of damage-related issue.

Dylan Rudd will be in the podium, or outside of the top 10. - He ran brilliantly here last year

Synergy Sim Racing’s run of strong quiet finishes comes to an end. Brenton Hobson, Jordan Ross, Tom Freer and Adam Briggs have barely featured on the coverage, but boy they have been putting points on the board. Tom Freer sits 4th in the standings and Hobson also inside the top 10 in 8th. Something happens to these guys…. It's got to happen somewhere in the field and Jordan Ross got some heavy hits last year.

The big question to everyone reading this is “Who do you think is going to win this race?”.

That race win could come from anywhere in the field and luck and timing will be the deciders in the race. Do you roll the dice with an early stop to get out of the pack? Do you run long and pin your hopes on a Safety Car? Tire fall off isn’t a big part of this race as well!

I’m thoroughly excited, see you all on race night!