Sonoma track poses different challenges

NASCAR drivers facing 1st road course of season

SONOMA, Calif. – This is an unusual year for NASCAR in terms of road course racing.

With the addition of the Charlotte Motor Speedway “roval” in September, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers will turn both left and right three times this year. The new schedule marks the first time since 1987 the series has held more than two road races and the first time since 1964 there have been races on three separate road courses.

This year’s courses are alike in category name only.

Sonoma Raceway, site of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, has a mix of elevations and requires a technical approach. Storied Watkins Glen International in New York is fast and unforgiving. And the oval-road course mix at Charlotte Motor Speedway is an entirely new animal, a hybrid whose characteristics and difficulties remain to be seen.

The driver approach to one road course doesn’t mirror the others.

“Watkins Glen is so fast,” Clint Bowyer said. “It is just dive-bombs (by other drivers), and you are really carrying a lot of speed at a place like Watkins Glen. Here, it is like being at Martinsville. Did you see my car at the end of the race last year? It was destroyed.

“I drove up through and passed the field twice because of mistakes that we made and got spun out once. It was a wild race to be able to finish second. You can’t do that at Watkins Glen. That car wouldn’t have run in the top 10 at Watkins Glen.” There is little rest, Bowyer said. “I know when I get in this car you have to be on your game,” he said. “You go through that little swell and the car unloads, and it is really easy to wheelhop and you have to get it ‘whoaed’ down to get on the bottom down there and get that thing launched off the corner and up through the gears up on the hill. Blind corner — this track just has way more than other tracks.”

Denny Hamlin, who’s looking for his first Sonoma win, said the driver-car percentage changes significantly here.

“I think driver means more than car at this particular racetrack,” he said. “I would say it’s probably 65-35 (percent), if I had to put a number on it. Driver more important. Probably on other racetracks, more 50-50. In that range.

“Certainly on tracks like this, where it’s as technical as it is and the driver has so many inputs from the wheel to the brake, clutch and gas and everything. We’re doing so much within the lap, different driver’s techniques come to the forefront, and that’s why you see the winners here have really been the best of the best.”

The all-time victory leader at Sonoma is retired Jeff Gordon, who scored five times. Next on the list is Tony Stewart with three. Ricky Rudd, Rusty Wallace, Ernie Irvan and Kyle Busch have two each. Busch is the only active driver with more than one win at Sonoma.

Hamlin said tire falloff is dramatic. “It’s really hard to accelerate out of the corners is the biggest thing that I notice when the tires start to wear out,” he said. “You just can’t put the throttle down nearly as hard as you can early in the run.

“As drivers, any time we have a racetrack that has a four-second falloff, that is going to make for really fun racing.”