Toyota/Save Mart 350 weekend preview: Larson looks to defend 2024 win, move up all-time victory list on Northern California road course as road ringing ace Van Gisbergen looks to challenge fresh off Chicago Streets triumph

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By Kyle Foster, the photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)

kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews

Names like Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon are legendary. Being mentioned in the same sentence as them is something that every driver shoots for. 

When NASCAR makes its lone trip to California, this is what Kyle Larson will aim to do as he looks to climb up the all-time wins list at Sonoma Raceway in the Toyota/Save Mart 350. 

Once again, coming back to defend his 2024 Sonoma win is Larson. The 32-year-old driver from Elk Grove is quickly adding up the wins at the Northern California road course. With a win in 2025, Larson will continue to move up the all-time win rankings at Sonoma Raceway. Larson also won the 2021 Toyota/Save Mart 350. 

“I think they’re both special,” Larson said. “It’s always special, I think, to win at home and have friends and family at the racetrack. Your friends that don’t typically get to go, I think, is the coolest piece of it. I mean, both races, kind of, from what I remember, very similar, like we had the dominant car, and both of the races that we won, so hopefully going back again will be just as good.” 

With a win, Larson would move into a tie for third-most all-time with Tony Stewart, who won three times in Wine Country. He is also chasing Jeff Gordon, who has five wins in Sonoma. He’s also coming into the race as the defending winner of the Chili Bowl Nationals for the third time in his career. 

“I mean, those two guys are kind of my heroes, of racing, and really looked up to them,” Larson explained of Stewart and Gordon. “So it’d be awesome, and we’ll just give our best effort. I think that’s all you can do.”

But ever since joining Hendrick Motorsports, Larson has been one of the best drivers in the sport. This has been especially noticeable on road courses. He has won 2 of the last 7 road course races in the NextGen era. In all, he has 5 wins on road courses since 2021.  

So far this season, Larson has won three times to tie him atop the playoff standings. He won at 1.5-mile tracks in Homestead-Miami and Kansas to go along with a dominating win at Bristol. 

Other drivers with multiple wins include Christopher Bell, who won three straight races at the beginning of the season, with wins at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, the first road course race of the season at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, and then Phoenix Raceway. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver also won the $1 million All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro in May. 

The only other driver with three trips to victory lane is Bell’s fellow Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin, who won at Martinsville, Darlington, and Michigan. However, Hamlin will come into Sonoma on a streak that no one wants to be on. After finishing last in the last two races, he will look to change that in 2025. 

“This could be at the back of the field, a historic weekend at Sears Point at the Toyota/Save Mart 350,” NASCAR historian and LastCar.Info editor Brock Beard explained. “Denny Hamlin has finished last in the last two Cup races at Sears Point. He had a crash two years ago. He had a blown engine last year. He debuts a new sponsor with the AM/PM sponsorship on the number 11 for the Sears Point race this year, and if he somehow finishes last yet again, it will tie the current record with Tom Hubert, who was last in three consecutive Sears Point races, 2004 2005, and 2006 at the end of that strea. Hubert actually wrecked on the opening lap, getting in a massive pile-up in the esses. Is it potentially going to be a third in a row, or is Denny going to turn things around and pull off a win there? I think that’s going to be a very exciting story.” 

The rest of the drivers locked into the playoffs on wins are: William Byron (Daytona 500), Josh Berry in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas in March for his first career Cup Series win, Austin Cindric (Talladega), Joey Logano (Texas), Ross Chastain (Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte), Ryan Blaney (Nashville), and road course ace Shane Van Gisbergen at Mexico City in NASCAR’s first international Cup Series race on foreign soil in the modern era. Chase Briscoe won his first race with JGR at Pocono. It wasn’t a points-paying race, but the most popular driver, Chase Elliott, won the summer race at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta and the season-opening Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on February 2nd.

With his win in Mexico and on the Chicago Streets, Van Gisbergen showed how much of a threat he is on every road course. The dominant performance has also made it to where most drivers will have to take their performance to another level to beat him. 

“He’s by far way better than all of us at the road course stuff,” Larson said of Van Gisbergen and how much of a threat he is to win at the Toyota/Save Mart 350. “COTA, I was really surprised.  He was really good, but he was kind of just more normal to all of us. (In) Mexico, he was crazy fast. I guess we’ve got Chicago coming up, he’s gonna be crazy fast there, and then we’ll see. I felt really good at Sonoma last year, but you never know.

“It’s fun racing against the caliber of driver that he is because, yes, it makes you elevate your game and try to figure out how to be better,” Larson added. “He’s just got his own unique style.” 

For the first time in race history, the event will occur July 11-13. This marks the latest time the event has ever happened. All of this came as part of a major schedule shakeup. But with school being out, it makes it much easier for fans to make the race without worrying. 

“It’s fantastic to now have the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the heart of summer when more fans are free to travel and enjoy a great weekend of racing,” Sonoma Raceway Executive VP and GM Brian Flynn explained. “Having three days of racing action gives our fans even more reasons to join us in Northern California.”  

On top of all of that, it marks a busy month of July for the track as the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals will take place just two weeks after the NASCAR event. This is the first time the facility has had to deal with its two largest events being so close to each other. 

“I would say July is going to be a busy month,” Flynn pointed out. “We’re into it right now.  We usually work three or four or five days hard after the event. We don’t take any time off till the following weekend because we really have to get the track prepared. We always have rental business, OEM, or car clubs, or whatnot, after the NASCAR event formerly in June, so we gotta jam on and get ready. And we typically have a 40-day window before NHRA comes to town. So we’ll be turning the property over for the NHRA event.” 

If all of that wasn’t enough, Sonoma is also where there will be just seven races left till the NASCAR playoffs start on Labor Day weekend. It will present an opportunity for a driver to win a race and lock themselves into the 10-race playoffs. 

One thing that has also been new this season is the networks that are carrying the races. While Fox Sports and NBC have their portion of the schedule with the Cup Series, the 10-race summer stretch has been broken up into two new partners, with Amazon Prime carrying 5 races and then Turner Sports returning and carrying 5 after that, which will include Sonoma. 

The 35th running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 will air live on TNT/Max at 12:30 pm on July 13th. Driver cams for all 36 drivers can be viewed on Max. There will be an alternate broadcast on TruTV. Practice and qualifying on Saturday will also be on Max and TruTV. The stage breaks will be at laps 25,55, in the 110-lap event. Before the race, the Patriot Jet Air team will perform in what has become a tradition in NASCAR’s lone visit to Northern California.

Another new change to the event is that it will be part of the quarterfinal round in the first-ever In-Season Challenge, which pits drivers against each other in a bracket format, with the winner taking home a $1 million prize after the final race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27th. The driver who finishes higher in each race will move on to the next round. 

“This is a landmark moment for both Sonoma Raceway and the sport of NASCAR,” Flynn explained in a press release. “The In-Season Challenge introduces an exciting, high-stakes format that energizes the summer portion of the season, and we are honored to host one of the key elimination rounds here in Sonoma. Fans can expect an intense and memorable weekend of racing.”

This will be the first Toyota/Save Mart 350 broadcast on TNT since 2014. Back then, it was still in June as part of what they had called the Summer 6-pack of races. Under the new TV deal, TNT and Turner Sports only have five races that they will carry before NBC Sports takes over for the remainder of the season.

Xfinity Series steals the show on Saturday with newly sponsored Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250

For the third straight year, the NASCAR Xfinity Series comes to Sonoma Raceway to contest what has become a very fun and interesting race on the Northern California 1.99-mile road course filled with elevation changes and minimum room for error. 

Meanwhile, the new sponsorship by Pit Boss Grills and FoodMaxx to co-sponsor the race only extends a relationship that they have with Speedway Motorsports with Pit Boss and the Save Mart Companies, which is the parent company of FoodMaxx.

“Pit Boss is a perfect match for our passionate NASCAR fans who fill our campgrounds and fire up their grills all weekend long at Sonoma Raceway,” Flynn said. “We’re excited to welcome them as the new entitlement sponsor of the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. It’s also a point of pride to have FoodMaxx join forces on this event, building on a relationship with The Save Mart Companies that’s been part of our race weekend tradition for decades.”

The bad news for the Xfinity Series field is that the defending winner, Van Gisbergen, will be in the field to defend the title. It’s not going to get any easier as young phenom Connor Zilisch won the first road course race of the season at Circuit of the Americas in March to prove he can win on a road course to go along with his most recent win at Pocono in June. He also won his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at Watkins Glen last year. 

But there will be some Northern California flair in this race, too. Dirt racing star and Hendrick Motorsports development driver Corey Day will be in the field wheeling the No. 17 machine for Hendrick. Day is on a development deal with Hendrick, so he’ll make select starts across the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and NASCAR Xfinity Series. The race at Sonoma will be one of 10 starts in the No. 17 car. Day won the season-opening race with High Limit Racing at the Dirt Track and Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.

However, Day won’t come into the race weekend without any experience. In April, he ran a TA2 car at Sonoma for some laps. He is also fresh off running the TA2 car at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 

Other regulars in the series to win races this season include defending series champion Justin Allgaier, who won at Las Vegas, Homestead-Miami, and Nashville. Austin Hill won at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta in the spring and then at Martinsville. Jesse Love of Menlo Park won the season opener at Daytona, Brandon Jones won at Darlington, Sammy Smith won the return to Rockingham Speedway on Easter weekend, and series rookie Nick Sanchez won his first career race in the series in the June race at EchoPark Speedway. 

Part-timer in the series, Aric Almirola, won at Phoenix in March. He has been making select starts with Joe Gibbs Racing in the series.   

NASCAR Cup Series drivers with wins on Saturdays this season include Larson with wins at Bristol and Texas, Byron at Charlotte, and Daniel Suarez at Mexico City. Van Gisbergen won on the streets of Chicago in the most recent race for the series. 

New to the Xfinity Series this season is the new exclusive TV partner in The CW, which carries every race of the season. The Sonoma Xfinity Series race will air at 1:30 pm on The CW, with practice and qualifying on Friday on The CW app. Stage breaks will take place at laps 20 and 45 in the 79-lap event.

Following that race, the Historic Trans-Am Series will run its race that which starts at 5 pm. Once again, competing in the field of it will be NASCAR on Fox’s lead play-by-play announcer, Mike Joy. 

The Historic Trans-Am series will qualify from 5:30 to 6 pm and then race from 6:30 to 7 pm to end Saturday’s activities. 

General Tire 200 is sure to bring excitement on Friday 

On Friday, the main event of the day is the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 200. This will be the first road course race of the year for the series, too. 

As has been the case for the past few years, this will be a one-day show. The series will practice and qualify on Friday morning. There will be a practice session from 10:40 am to 12 pm, and then from 12:10 to 12:30 pm, a qualifying session. 

Notable entries in the field will be Day in the Spire Motorsports 7 car.  It’s also very possible that some Xfinity Series or Cup Series drivers enter the event to get some more laps around the track. 

Winners this year for the series are Trevor Huddleston, who won both races at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway, Brent Crews at Phoenix, Tanner Reif at Tucson, and Bollman at Colorado National Speedway.

The race will air live on FloRacing at 3:30 pm. A subscription to the service is required to watch. The race is 64 laps long, and a halfway break will occur following lap 32. It will also be simulcast on NASCAR’s Tubi channel. 

Following the race on Friday, Historic Trans-Am will race from 5:30 to 6 pm to end the activities for the day.