Toyota/Save Mart 350 weekend preview: Suarez looks to repeat after first win in 2022 as Xfinity Series makes first-ever trip to Northern California road course
By Kyle Foster, photo by Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
When June comes that normally only means one thing — NASCAR in Sonoma. It’s an annual tradition that always has a new twist or a few each year.
The weekend of June 9th through the 11th will be the same as the track has got a lot of the same on tap. That being said, there are some new things in store for fans heading to the Northern California road course in Wine Country.
As always, the main course of the weekend will be the 34th running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Cup Series race. Last year, the race was won by Daniel Suarez. It was his first and only Cup Series victory to date.
Previously, fans had been used to a stage break following the first two stages where there are built-in cautions where the cars follow the pace car. But NASCAR decided in the offseason to still award stage points to the top ten at the end of each stage as they have since 2017, with the one difference meaning there will be no caution on the track. Basically, it’s NASCAR going back to how it was for the first 68 years of NASCAR’s existence.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Chase Elliott said of not stopping the race at the stage breaks. “I feel like the strategy of your race was extremely, already pretty much done based on when the stage breaks were. So let’s kind of see, I haven’t really looked at what it’s going to look like and when you have to stop and things. But I know that those stages really dictated the strategy in the past.”
In the Toyota/Save Mart 350, stage points will be awarded to the top ten finishers following laps 25 and 55. As mentioned before, the race will stay green and all cautions will be natural in the effort to have more strategy.
Elliott and Alex Bowman have both missed some time this season after off-track injuries. Josh Berry filled in for both.
This season is also NASCAR’s diamond anniversary. The sanctioning body is in its 75th year and all season long is a celebration of the sport and how far it has come in that time.
As part of the celebration, there have been some changes to the schedule this season as well. However, it’s not nearly as many changes to the schedule as there have been in recent seasons. For the All-Star Race weekend, NASCAR went back in time and raced at North Wilkesboro in Wilkes County, North Carolina, which is a little over an hour outside of the NASCAR Hub City of Charlotte.
This is the first time NASCAR has returned to North Wilkesboro Speedway since leaving there in 1996. It was one of the series’ original tracks and a fixture on the schedule. In this case, something that’s old has a way of being brand new again. Many of the drivers weren’t even alive when NASCAR last raced there.
Then, the other new addition to the calendar is a wild new concept coming in just a few weeks’ time when NASCAR heads to the City of Chicago for the first-ever street race. Many other racing series have done street races, but this is a new adventure for NASCAR. The Cup Series Grant Park 200 will be on July 2nd.
As it has been for a while, a win gets you a ticket to the NASCAR playoffs that begins in September. So far William Byron has racked up a trip of victories at Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Darlington. Kyle Busch has a trio of victories at Fontana, Talladega, and St. Louis. There has also been a bunch of single-race winners like Ricky Stenhouse Jr. who won the Daytona 500 to go along with Joey Logano (Atlanta), Tyler Reddick (Circuit of the Americas), Christopher Bell (Bristol Dirt), Ryan Blaney (Charlotte), and Martin Truex Jr. (Dover). In addition, Truex also won the season-opening Busch Light Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in February, which is an exhibition race.
Other than Logano’s win at Atlanta, Ford as a whole has been off the pace this season. The Roush Fenway Keselowski team has been the fastest blue oval on a weekly basis over Team Penske and Stewart-Haas Racing.
As there always are there are some rookies in the Cup Series this season Ty Gibbs and Noah Gragson. Kyle Busch now drives for Richard Childress. Corning’s Tyler Reddick now drives for 23XI Racing. Ryan Preece is now behind the wheel of the 41 car. Bakersfield’s Kevin Harvick will be running his final Toyota/Save Mart 350 as he announced he will retire at the season’s end. Harvick won the 2017 event at Sonoma.
The only other multi-time winner that’s missing is Elk Grove’s own Kyle Larson. Yung Money owned the state of Virginia in the Spring as he won 2 races in 3 weeks at Richmond and Martinsville. This year, fans can gain a special Kyle Larson experience on Saturday and Sunday at the track. He also won the All-Star race for the 3rd time in 5 years, all at a trio of different tracks. He’s also looking to win his sixth straight Busch pole award at the track.
In addition, the track has had a large presence when it comes to being involved in Larson and brother-in-law Brad Sweet’s High Limit Sprint Car Series. All the midweek, high-paying races can be seen live on FloRacing. Before heading out west to Sonoma, Larson will pilot his No. 57 Paul Silva-owned Finley Farms Sprint Car on Tuesday night at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska. Sonoma Raceway was a key partner with Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare for the season-opening non-points race of the High Limit Series that was rained out in February.
“We believe that promoting all forms of racing promotes all forms of racing,” Gregory explained. “I think that those small tracks, dirt tracks, short tracks, whatever it is, Kyle will basically race in anything that has a wheel and four wheels on it. So we have a relationship down with his some of his other races, we have a relationship with FloRacing to kind of get the word out.”
Larson is also slated to run the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500 in 2024 where he will race 1100 Miles between the Brickyard and Charlotte Motor Speedway. The last NASCAR driver to do this feat was Kurt Busch in 2014.
Prior to the start of the Toyota/Save Mart 350, DJ Diesel, aka Shaquille O’Neil will perform a pre-race concert. The four-time NBA Champion and NBA on TNT studio analyst is part of a star-studded Sunday at the track as actor/comedian Adam Davine is the Grand Marshall and will give the command to start engines. Up-and-coming country singer Tiffany Woys will perform the National Anthem and WWE Star Braun Strowman will be the honorary pace car driver before the green flag flies.
“We can’t wait to entertain our race fans with DJ Diesel throwing the party,” Gregory said. “This is always a high-energy crowd that loves our pre-race show. We’re looking forward to dialing up that energy higher than ever with Shaq leading the way at the Toyota/Save Mart 350.”
The Toyota/Save Mart 350 will be the final race of the NASCAR on FOX season. You can watch the race live on Fox at 12:30 pm on June 11th.
NASCAR Xfinity Series makes first-ever trip to Sonoma for DoorDash 250
The weekend is even more exciting this year as the Triple-A series known as the NASCAR Xfinity Series will take on the road course for the first time ever on June 10th for the DoorDash 250. Like the Cup Series, there will be no cautions at the end of the stage and the race will stay green.
“We are thrilled to have the Xfinity Series racing here in Sonoma for the first time ever,” Gregory said in a September 2022 press release. “This is part of our promise to our fans to keep raising the bar and we expect several of the Cup Series racers to pull double duty and run the Xfinity Series race as well.”
In the first-ever running of the DoorDash 250 last year, it was Kyle Busch who won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Sonoma. The trucks won’t be racing this year in Wine Country but it’s likely they return.
The Xfinity Series race on Saturday will have an absolutely loaded field. Cup Series drivers like Larson and Ross Chastain.
Chastain will race the No. 91 car for DGM Racing. Skip Barber Racing School, the school at Sonoma Raceway, will sponsor him. Chastain will also have Skip Barber Racing School sponsor him at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course on August 12th.
“Racing on road courses is something I have only done in NASCAR,” Chastain said of running the Xfinity Race at Sonoma. “I didn’t grow up turning left and right, so I have had to learn and adapt quickly. I recognized early on that I needed as many laps as possible. Skip Barber has been a great way for me to get laps, and I am excited to announce this partnership for Sonoma and the Indy Road Course.”
Larson will run the No.17 HendrickCars.com car for Hendrick Motorsports in the Saturday race. In the limited starts, the car has last season and so far this season it hasn’t gone to victory lane. Should Larson win both races of the weekend, it would be the second time he swept the wins after doing so at North Wilkesboro.
“Really excited to get the opportunity to run the Xfinity race at Sonoma Raceway in our #17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet,” said Larson. “I always love racing at Sonoma as it’s considered my home track being just a few hours away from where I grew up, and too, it’s a special place for me as I definitely see more fans wearing our No.5 apparel around the track.”
It’s also been no secret that Chastain and Larson have had a few run-ins on track this season as well, which should make the race weekend that much more interesting.
So far this season, the Xfinity Series has seen Austil Hill go to victory lane three times after winning at Daytona, Las Vegas, and Atlanta. John Hunter Nemechek picked up wins at Fontana and Martinsville. The single race winners that are also in the playoffs so far this season are Sammy Smith (Phoenix), Chandler Smith (Richmond), Jeb Burton (Talladega), and Cole Custer (Portland). Part-time Joe Gibbs Racing driver Ryan Truex won at Dover. Shockingly, one of the top teams in the series JR Motorsports has been to victory lane just once at Charlotte with Justin Allgaier after dominating the series last year where they sent 3 of their 4 cars to the Championship 4.
Winners from the Cup Series this season are A.J. Allmendinger at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and Larson at Darlington.
The Xfinity Series keeps reloading with solid young talent as Chandler and Sammy Smith are some of the rookies this season.
Entering the race at Sonoma only six drivers in the full-time field have run a race there. Those five are Nemechek, Allgaier, Burton, Custer, Chandler Smith, and Parker Kligerman. This means it will be a lot of new for the majority of the field.
“I think that there’s quite a bit, to be honest as far as line-wise, tire management,” Nemechek said as to what will transfer from his race last season at the road course. “Just that race track is really hard. Without actually running laps there and getting used to the track surface and in how your car reacts to long runs how rubber reacts on the race track. There’s a lot of different things that play into Sanoma being a key race track. So I know that I won’t have probably the most notes going into Sonoma, or the most laps going into Sonoma, but definitely feel good about the experience that I’ve had there and hopefully, we have a really strong day when we go.”
Also on tap for Saturday is the Historic Trans-Am race that NASCAR on Fox play-by-play announcer Mike Joy will race in. He did this in 2021 as well. His son Scottie will be in the race as well.
“I grew up in road racing,” Joy said in a press conference at the Busch Light Clash on February 3rd. “I grew up kind of on the hillsides of Lime Rock and so for NASCAR to go road racing that’s right in my wheelhouse, and it’s what I most love. And when I came of age, I was covering the Trans-Am. I remember these cars in 1970. This Owens Corning team came to Lime Rock with only one of their two cars. The other car wasn’t finished. The press kit had pictures of the drivers but not of the cars because there weren’t any cars built yet and it was just a wonderful series. All the manufacturers were involved that year. They all had factory cars and America’s best drivers. Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, (and) Mark Donohue were all in the Trans-Am. It was bigger than NASCAR is then. So to be able to take all of those real race cars restored, no clones and no replicas and bring them to the NASCAR fans at Sonoma is very, very cool and just a great point of pride for all of us.”
The Historic Trans-Am race will go from 11 to 11:30 am on Saturday morning before Xfinity Series qualifying. The Historic Trans-Am series is made up of the actual Trans-Am race cars that raced from 1966-1972 when it was the biggest stock-bodied car racing series in America, with drivers like Parnelli Jones, Mark Donohue, and Dan Gurney. The Mustangs, Camaros, Javelins, Challengers, ‘Cudas, and Firebirds racing in Historic Trans-Am are all restored to the series’ 1966-1972 rules. It is fitting that Joy should choose to race this event at Sonoma because it was right here in 1992 that this series kicked off during the Wine Country Classic held at Sonoma Raceway.
Also that day from 2 to 4 pm, the NASCAR Cup Series will practice and qualify to set the lineup for Sunday’s race.
The 80-lap DoorDash 250 will be aired at 5 pm on Fox Sports 1. The stage breaks will be at the end of laps 20 and 45. Following the race country artist Tim Dugger will have a free post-race concert for anyone with a Saturday ticket at the fan zone stage in the fan zone behind the main grandstand.
ARCA Menards Series West General Tire 200 moves to Friday afternoon
Like always, the ARCA West Series will take on the 1.99-mile road course. The only difference is this year the event moves to Friday afternoon.
This year, the General Tire 200 is the fifth race in the season for the up-and-coming stars. The race will be the second of two races in June. One major thing fans will notice is that the series will now have pit road access after being on the drag strip last year.
“We looked at this Saturday schedule from last year when I got the okay to bring Xfinity here,” Gregory said as to why the ARCA race was moved to Friday afternoon. “We also practice and qualifying back for the Cup cars on Saturday and you looked at Saturday, even from a logistic standpoint, staffing and fire and safety and all of that it was a long day on Saturday, which if it makes sense, that’s fine. But it allows us to give more content on Friday to the fans that are here, particularly the campers that load in on Thursday and we don’t have to put them on the drag strip.”
Winning the few races so far this season is Tyler Reif at Phoenix, Sean Hingorani at Irwindale, and Kern County. Landen Lewis leads the points so far as well and just won the most race in Portland.
The 64-lap General Tire 200 will air live on FloRacing where a subscription is required at 3:30 pm on June 9th. On July 18th at 8:30 am, the race will air on tape delay on CNBC. Practice and qualifying will go from 11 to 12:30 pm on race day with Xfinity practice from 1:05 to 1:55 pm prior to the race.
To get tickets to any of the events over NASCAR weekend, visit Sonoma Raceway’s website at sonomaraceway.com. The track also has the Sonoma Raceway app for IOS and Android. Their social media handle is @RaceSonoma on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook. You can also call them at (800) 870-7223.
