Start

The night before the race, Tony Stewart was involved in an incident – which resulted in the death of fellow competitor, Kevin Ward Jr. – during a sprint car race at Canandaigua Motorsports Park, around 50 miles (80 kilometres) from Watkins Glen.^[17] Prior to the start of the race, Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition for Stewart-Haas Racing, announced that Stewart would not race and Regan Smith would drive in his place.^[18] Zipadelli confirmed pre-race that Stewart "feels strongly this is the right thing to do" and that his Stewart-Haas Racing team supported and agreed with his decision.^[19] As a result of the driver change, Smith started from the rear of the field. The race was scheduled to start at 1:19 p.m. Eastern time, but the race started five minutes late with Jeff Gordon leading the field.

Kevin Harvick made an unscheduled stop on lap four to remove a bean bag from his car. Paul Menard also made an unscheduled stop for a fluid leak and took his car to the garage. Cole Whitt brought out the first caution of the race on lap 10 after his brakes locked up and he collided head on into the tire barrier in turn 1. The race restarted on lap 15, with Gordon still leading. The next lap, Brad Keselowski made contact with Matt Kenseth in turn 1 and the grill of his car caved in. Kyle Larson was running 23rd on lap 18 when he missed the turn into the inner loop, and was forced to come to a complete stop; as a result, Larson fell back to 38th. Two laps later, David Ragan and Boris Said blew the entrance to the inner loop and fell back in the running order. Alex Bowman spun in turn six and got back going again without bringing out the caution. Kyle Busch made his first stop on lap 24 and left his pit box with the fuel can stuck on the car; he served a stop-and-go penalty for removing equipment from the pit box.

Big wreck

The third caution of the race flew on lap 56 for a crash in the outer loop, a lap later, where the race was red flagged to ensue cleanup on the track. Greg Biffle drifted into the runoff area on the exit of turn 5 and came across the front of Ryan Newman. Newman's car got turned and hit the Armco barrier on the right-hand side, before turning back towards traffic. Newman's rear of the car then barely clipped McDowell in the right-rear. McDowell's rear wheel housing broke off, the car then bounced twice in the air and then punctured a hole in the Armco barrier on the left side of the track, beyond the exit of The Boot where it send McDowell on his side for a brief second before he came back upright. Bowman and Danica Patrick also took damage in the wreck,^[20] while the red flag was lifted temporarily to bring the field down the front stretch.^[21]

In a post-race interview with ESPN reporter Vince Welch, Newman was highly critical of the circuit, in regards to the Armco barriers, the damage that was caused by his car and the car of McDowell, as well as its "antiquated" safety features. Upon his return to pit road, McDowell also spoke with Welch, stating that "it seems like when I do it they are usually fairly big", referring to a previous crash that he had suffered at the 2008 Samsung 500, at Texas Motor Speedway. He also stated that he "didn't really have time to adjust or move, I just tried not to hit Ryan in the door there. I was along for the ride".^[22]

The race was red flagged for 81 minutes while the Armco barriers were repaired, and as the cars started running again,^[23] Carl Edwards stayed out when the leaders came in to pit. The race restarted with 31 laps to go, and A. J. Allmendinger took the lead from Edwards with 30 laps to go. Casey Mears got turned in the inner loop with 18 laps to go, before the caution flew for the fourth time with 13 laps to go, after Josh Wise stalled in the inner loop. Allmendinger led the way on the restart with nine laps to go, but the fifth caution came out very quickly when Jimmie Johnson got turned in turn 1 and made contact with Regan Smith, while Justin Allgaier was also collected.

Finish

A. J. Allmendinger scored his first career Cup Series win.

The race restarted with five laps to go. Ambrose took the lead immediately thereafter, following a side-by-side battle with Allmendinger. The sixth caution period came out the following lap, when Denny Hamlin spun and crashed into the gravel-filled barrels at the entrance to pit road. In a non-connected incident, Alex Kennedy hit the wall on the exit of turn one, to bring out the sixth caution, the race was red flagged for a second time. Following a delay of around 20 minutes, the race restarted, and Allmendinger held off a hard charging Ambrose with two laps to go to score his first career Sprint Cup Series victory. Upon exiting his car, Allmendinger expressed his delight at the result, stating he could not "believe we've won a NASCAR Sprint Cup race", before congratulating his entire JTG Daugherty Racing team, expressing "with this whole 47 team, [team owners] Tad Geschickter, Jody Geschickter, Brad Daugherty, all the great sponsors we have, our first Cup victory together, my first victory...I love these guys. I just wanted it so bad for them and this team. They work so hard. I wasn't gonna let Marcos take that from me". Ambrose recorded his sixth top-three finish in Sprint Cup races at Watkins Glen, but praised the performance of his late-race rival, Allmendinger. "First of all, congratulations to A. J. and the 47 team. They deserved that win. I left nothing on the table. I tried to rattle his cage and couldn't shake him. We raced fair and square to the end there. It was a tough couple laps but it was fair. We were both giving it to each other pretty hard. No harm, no foul. We just came up a little short".^[24]