This article is part of our Weekly Preview series.
Sonoma Raceway is a two-mile, 12-turn road course with many elevation changes and several different types of corners. The long, relatively straight runs are abruptly ended by many sharp corners, so horsepower and brakes are very important. One lap around Sonoma incurs a total 160 feet of elevation change, so this course is very hard on the driver and equipment. The 180-degree carrousel turn before the start/finish line provides many passing opportunities to those drivers who can drive in deep and out-brake their opponents.
Other than that carrousel turn, drivers have to be on their toes for any opportunity to make a pass. These characteristics make it a tough course for the oval track drivers, because they will struggle to find passing opportunities. The action on the road circuits the last few seasons has been pretty rough and tumble, in fact, it resembles more of what we expect to see on a short track oval due to all the contact. Sonoma has been no exception, so we expect to see that same fender-beating action in this installment of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. Along with the
Sonoma Raceway is a two-mile, 12-turn road course with many elevation changes and several different types of corners. The long, relatively straight runs are abruptly ended by many sharp corners, so horsepower and brakes are very important. One lap around Sonoma incurs a total 160 feet of elevation change, so this course is very hard on the driver and equipment. The 180-degree carrousel turn before the start/finish line provides many passing opportunities to those drivers who can drive in deep and out-brake their opponents.
Other than that carrousel turn, drivers have to be on their toes for any opportunity to make a pass. These characteristics make it a tough course for the oval track drivers, because they will struggle to find passing opportunities. The action on the road circuits the last few seasons has been pretty rough and tumble, in fact, it resembles more of what we expect to see on a short track oval due to all the contact. Sonoma has been no exception, so we expect to see that same fender-beating action in this installment of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. Along with the handful of road course specialists who show up every year for this event, we have a handful of Monster Energy Cup Series regulars that really shine when we visit Sonoma Raceway. Drivers like Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch don't miss a beat when we come to the California road course. These drivers have great fantasy racing value on the circuit's many ovals, and they also make great selections on the road circuits like Sonoma Raceway. Their experience with shifting and making right turns will make them better than most the Monster Energy Cup regulars in the field.
Since this is the first of two road course events in the Monster Energy Cup Series schedule, we'll have to almost solely rely on recent historical data this weekend. The current hot streaks entering this race will play a very small part, but really this style of track requires a lot of historical data review for making our driver lists. There are certain drivers, really good ones, who hate road course racing and it will show up on the track this Sunday. The drivers who have performed well at Sonoma in recent years have a definite advantage in the Toyota/Save Mart 350. The loop stats shown below cover the last 12 years or 12 races at Sonoma Raceway.
| DRIVER | AVG FINISH | QUALITY PASSES | FASTEST LAPS | LAPS LED | LAPS IN TOP 15 | RATING |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kurt Busch | 11.8 | 298 | 82 | 166 | 1,054 | 107.8 |
| Jimmie Johnson | 10.8 | 340 | 73 | 131 | 1,013 | 99.9 |
| Clint Bowyer | 11.5 | 264 | 40 | 82 | 671 | 90.2 |
| Kyle Busch | 18.1 | 215 | 55 | 107 | 738 | 90.1 |
| Kyle Larson | 18.3 | 66 | 8 | 0 | 255 | 90.0 |
| Ryan Newman | 13.1 | 260 | 18 | 11 | 815 | 88.3 |
| Kevin Harvick | 15.8 | 271 | 48 | 36 | 829 | 87.9 |
| A.J. Allmendinger | 20.9 | 198 | 29 | 56 | 454 | 87.5 |
| Martin Truex Jr. | 19.5 | 219 | 65 | 67 | 626 | 87.0 |
| Kasey Kahne | 16.3 | 311 | 45 | 41 | 786 | 86.9 |
| Jamie McMurray | 17.2 | 158 | 27 | 41 | 605 | 85.5 |
| Joey Logano | 12.9 | 162 | 9 | 18 | 508 | 83.4 |
| Denny Hamlin | 20.8 | 199 | 42 | 81 | 457 | 80.2 |
| Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 18.9 | 224 | 27 | 0 | 558 | 77.6 |
| Matt Kenseth | 20.6 | 141 | 1 | 0 | 565 | 74.7 |
| Brad Keselowski | 19.1 | 131 | 14 | 7 | 375 | 74.2 |
| Chase Elliott | 21.0 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 11 | 67.7 |
| Paul Menard | 18.0 | 86 | 5 | 3 | 208 | 67.1 |
| Austin Dillon | 18.7 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 28 | 64.2 |
| Ryan Blaney | 23.0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 63.2 |
For a number of years Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart dominated the 12-turn road course with seven wins in a nine-year stretch. Due to their retirement though, younger drivers have stepped in and taken over the reins at the California road course the last few years. Young stars like Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. have dethroned the old NASCAR guard at Sonoma, so this race is more unpredictable than ever. Last season saw Stewart collect the last of his 49-career victories with a surprising performance at the California road course. He outlasted stars Denny Hamlin, Joey Logano and Carl Edwards over the closing laps. Even though Stewart won last season, the recent theme at Sonoma Raceway points to first-time winners. Drivers like Kyle Larson, Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott have been racing well of late, so we wouldn't rule out a first-time Sonoma winner this Sunday. However, past Sonoma winners like Truex, Bowyer, and both Busch brothers are always in the hunt for the win each time we visit this unique road course. We'll take a look at the stats, Sonoma's history and the road course experts in order to give you the drivers you need to dominate your league this weekend.
The Contenders - Drivers in the hunt for the win
Martin Truex Jr. – The one-time Sonoma winner comes back to the scene of his surprising victory in the 2013 Toyota/Save Mart 350. Truex will pilot the No. 78 Toyota of Furniture Row Racing in this Sunday's 350k event, and he rides into California a lofty second in the championship standings after his sensational start to the season. The veteran driver has a pretty good recent Sonoma resume to boot. Truex has 66 laps led and two Top-5 finishes in his last five starts at the 12-turn road course. The veteran driver started third on the grid and finished fifth in this event one year ago. The team can seem to do no wrong right now on the series' ovals, and we're willing to bet that exceptionalism translates to the road course circuit as well.
Clint Bowyer – The No. 14 Stewart Haas Racing team has performed well this season and Bowyer has rewarded them with a 12th-place position in the standings coming to Sonoma. His resume is very impressive at this road circuit. Bowyer won this event five years ago and he owns six Top 5s and eight Top 10s in just 11-career starts at this facility. The veteran driver's skills on these winding circuits is clear once you examine the numbers. Considering that this same No. 14 SHR team took Tony Stewart to victory lane in last season's Toyota Save Mart 350, you have to be very about Bowyer's chances to not only outperform, but to challenge for the win. You can guarantee he'll be very eager to take to the track this Sunday.
Kyle Larson – The championship standings leader comes to California riding high after his second victory of the season. Larson put on an impressive performance at Michigan this past week to claim the win. Now he'll set his sights on a good performance at the Sonoma road course. Larson has three-career starts at this facility, and each passing start has gotten progressively better. Finishes of 28th, 15th- and 12th-place have shown a good trend. Now it's time for the No. 42 Chevrolet team to turn it up a notch. Larson has qualified on the front 3 rows in each of his Sonoma starts, so clearly the speed is there to win. The experiences learned to this point should begin to pay dividends this weekend. Considering how hot Larson is, a surprising Sonoma win would not be that surprising.
Kyle Busch – The Joe Gibbs Racing star is a two-time winner at Sonoma Raceway. Coming off 140 laps led and a pair of Top 10s at Pocono at Michigan, Busch is racing very well right now. His recent outings at this California track have been pretty spot on. Busch won the 2015 installment of this event, and last season he qualified eighth on the starting grid and finished an impressive seventh. The No. 18 JGR team has the speed right now to contend for wins each week, and Busch presents the homerun potential at this road course to put on a dominant performance. If the right things click in terms of race flow and pit strategy, Busch could walk away this Sunday as a three-time Sonoma winner.
Solid Plays - Drivers who are near locks for the top 10 with an outside shot at winning
Kurt Busch – Busch has been on a good streak the last two months of racing. He's climbed from 17th- to 14th-place in the driver point standings in his last 7 starts, and has four Top-10 finishes during the span. The veteran driver is an excellent road course racer and his Sonoma stats back that up. Busch won this event in 2011 and he's led 197-career circuits at the 12-turn California race track. His seven-career Top-5 finishes work out to an impressive 44-percent Top-5 rate at Sonoma Raceway. Busch has finished inside the Top 10 in five of his last six starts at the Sonoma road course. The level of performance for the No. 41 SHR team at this facility is well above the norm. The veteran driver is a safe fantasy racing play and comes with a lot of upside.
Joey Logano – Logano is coming off an impressive, slump-ending, third-place finish at Michigan this past week. The No. 22 team is pointed back in the right direction entering this weekend's race in wine country. Logano has a short but successful resume at the California road course. The Penske Racing driver has one pole position and four Top-10 finishes in his last six trips to Sonoma Raceway. He has finished on the lead lap in all but one of his eight-career starts at this tricky facility. In this event one year ago Logano started seventh on the grid and finished a career-best third at Sonoma Raceway. All things being equal we expect the young driver to stay on a roll this Sunday afternoon at the 12-turn road course.
Kevin Harvick – Harvick doesn't have the career statistics at Sonoma to inspire major confidence this weekend, but he does have two things going for him. One, his recent record on road courses and two, he has a lot of momentum coming to California this week. The driver of the No. 4 Ford has five Top 10s in his last seven Sonoma races coming into this Sunday's Toyota Save Mart 350. He led a career-best 23 laps in this event three years ago, and he led 3 laps en route to finishing a strong sixth last season at this facility. Additionally, Harvick is a career 50-percent Top-10 finisher at the winding circuit at Watkins Glen. It's clear that the SHR star has the tools to succeed on these unique circuits. There may be no better "outside" contender play this week than the Stewart Haas Racing veteran.
Jimmie Johnson – Johnson joined the winner's list at Sonoma with his brilliant performance in this event in 2010. The driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet qualified on the outside pole for that race and led 55 laps en route to Johnson's first-career Sonoma win. The seven-time Monster Energy Cup Series champion has cracked the Top 10 in seven of his last eight Sonoma starts. Johnson's 60-percent Top-10 rate at this winding course ranks among the very best in the Monster Energy Cup Series. He comes to California fresh off a Top-10 finish at Michigan this past weekend, so we expect Johnson to be good, and possibly great in Sunday's Toyota Save Mart 350.
Sleepers - Drivers with good history at Sonoma who can provide a solid finish
Denny Hamlin – Hamlin has been heating up in recent weeks. With three Top-10 finishes in the last four events entering this weekend, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team has climbed from 12th to ninth in the driver point standings. Sonoma Raceway hasn't been Hamlin's best track over the years, but things started turning more positive there in last season's Toyota Save Mart 350. The veteran driver led a career-best 33 laps and finished runner-up to Tony Stewart in a brilliant performance. The effort snapped a six-race Sonoma Top-10 drought for Hamlin, and showed he does have the road racing skills to conquer this course. Hamlin should stay hot for this 350k battle on the winding turns of Sonoma.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. – The most popular driver in NASCAR will look to build on the momentum of his ninth-place finish at Michigan this past weekend. He comes to Sonoma Raceway this week in a more optimistic mode and looking to continue his recent good record at this facility. Up until 2014, this 12-turn road course had been a place of near-misses and heartbreak for the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet. However, his 12th-, third-, seventh- and 11th-place finishes in his last four trips to wine country show dramatic improvement over earlier in his career. Now Earnhardt and crew chief Greg Ives come to Sonoma to build on those efforts. A Top-10 finish is a reasonable expectation for this driver and team, and Top 15 seems like the lower end possibility.
Jamie McMurray – The Chip Ganassi Racing veteran is having a fantastic season. McMurray has nine Top 10s through the first 15 events and comes to Sonoma Raceway a lofty seventh in the points. He has a reasonably good career record at this winding road circuit, but it's what he's done in recent starts that grabs our attention the most. McMurray is a three-time pole winner at Sonoma, but two of those have come in his last four starts. The driver of the No. 1 Chevrolet has finishes of fourth-, 11th- and 17th- in his last three visits to Sonoma Raceway. McMurray will likely bring his best car to the 12-turn course in a long time this weekend. We expect top results for McMurray and his Chip Ganassi Racing team in the Toyota Save Mart 350.
Kasey Kahne – While the past couple seasons have been trying for Kahne and the No. 5 team, one thing has remained pretty consistent and that's his performance on the road courses. The Hendrick Motorsports veteran has been battling some struggles the past month, so he'll be very happy to see the winding circuit at Sonoma this weekend. Kahne rides a four-race Sonoma Top-10 streak into Sunday's battle in wine country, and that streak carries through what has been a few of his most difficult seasons racing at NASCAR's top level. His 46-percent career Top-10 rate at this track stands above most of the field. Many fantasy racing players will overlook Kahne this weekend, but deploy him with confidence and use that to your advantage in weekly lineup leagues.
A.J. Allmendinger – The California native will gladly have a homecoming this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. Allmendinger has been battling some performance issues of late. He's a veteran of many road course races and has competed at Sonoma in more than one racing series. As his two Xfinity Series wins in 2013 on the road course circuit showed, Allmendinger possesses incredible road racing skills. The JTG/Daugherty Racing driver has started on the front row each of the last three years at Sonoma, and he's led 56 laps combined in those starts. His luck has not always held up so that he could deliver the big finishes in those races, but the speed and skill are there to succeed. Allmendinger is a fantasy racing sleeper with homerun potential at Sonoma Raceway.
Ryan Newman – The 39-year-old veteran has put up some fantastic finishes in the rolling hills of California. Newman's seven-career Top-10 finishes in 15 starts ranks an impressive 46-percent for a Top-10 rate. His finishes of 11th-, ninth- and eighth-place in his last three starts shows that Newman is racing at a high level in recent Sonoma outings. The No. 31 Richard Childress Racing team has been heating up over the last month after a slow start to the season. Newman has grabbed a pair of Top 10s and four Top 15s in his last four races entering Sonoma weekend. We really like the veteran experience that this driver and team brings to the table in a very young race field. When it comes to road course racing, experience is an invaluable asset.
Slow Down - Drivers to avoid this week
Chase Elliott – The young Hendrick Motorsports driver will be making just his second-career Sonoma start this Sunday afternoon. Elliott qualified 16th on the grid and struggled to finish 21st in his Sonoma Raceway debut last season. The driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet is super talented and he's riding a good performance streak coming to California this week, but this track is a different animal than an oval. There is no other style of racing in NASCAR that prepares a driver to deal with the passing techniques, lines that need to be run and dealing with the heavy-contact restarts that resemble short track mayhem. Elliott is a fantastic talent, but his resume in this style of racing just isn't deep enough yet. He needs to learn a bit more before he becomes a dependable fantasy racing asset at a track like Sonoma. Keep him on the bench this week.
Brad Keselowski – Despite Keselowski's past success at the New York road course, Watkins Glen, he's never been able to translate that to the much different track in California. In seven-career starts at Sonoma Raceway, the Penske Racing star has only one Top-10 finish and has only 7 laps led over those starts. It all shakes out to an average finish of 19.1 for his career at this facility. The lack of performance and lack of results for this excellent driver and team are concerning. It's well below what we expect for the No. 2 Ford team, and not worthy of fantasy racing deployment. Keep Keselowski on the bench this week and save that start for the following weekend at Daytona.
Matt Kenseth – The Joe Gibbs Racing star comes to Sonoma Raceway as an outside championship contender. So it probably comes as a surprise to see the downgrade to the slow down list this week for the No. 20 Toyota team. Kenseth is a wonderfully consistent driver most any weekend of the NASCAR season, but like anyone he has an Achilles heel. The 12-turn road course is that weakness for Kenseth. In 17-career starts he's managed one Top-10 finish and a lowly average finish of 21.9. A middle teen's finish appears to be the ceiling for Kenseth this weekend, so it's a good idea to save his best for some other weekend in the schedule.
Ryan Blaney – Chase Elliott isn't the only young driver to avoid this week, Blaney fits that description too. The Wood Brothers Racing driver is having a great season, but he's been prone to some occasional power outages. This weekend could be another one of those occasions. Blaney is making his second-career Sonoma start Sunday afternoon. In this event one year ago he qualified 26th on the starting grid and struggled to a 23rd-place finish in his Sonoma debut. We're certain he learned a lot of lessons in that race, but Blaney still has a lot to learn about road course racing. The No. 21 Ford has been lights out on the intermediate ovals this season, so keep his starts reserved for those cookie cutter ovals, and pass him up for more favorable drivers this weekend.
