Rolling hills and a picturesque view of California’s Wine County, Sonoma Raceway offers one of the absolute best vantage points in all of racing.
A NASCAR race in California Wine Country is anything but tranquil
The atmosphere in the surrounding area may be relaxed, but what transpires when NASCAR makes its annual summer stop at Sonoma Raceway is anything but serene.
But the serene setting is in stark contrast to what unfolds every June when the Monster Energy Cup Series visits the 1.99-mile, 11-turn road course, site of Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m., FS1). If the surrounding area is chill, the action on the track is anything but civil, often resembling something more akin to an alley fight, where the conduct among NASCAR drivers is vastly different than how road course racing frequently works in other motorsport disciplines.
“It feels like it’s rip and gouge and take all you can get at any moment,” said Kurt Busch, the 2011 Sonoma winner. “In a way, it’s a shame that some of the respect and putting on a bit of the collared shirts and class is gone, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to win.
“The way that we respected each other on road courses early in my career is out the window.”
No incident better underscores the physicality — and sometimes ruthlessness — associated with Cup races at Sonoma than the 2011 slugfest Tony Stewart and Brian Vickers engaged in. First, Stewart intentionally spun Vickers for what he perceived was Vickers’ attempt to block him. After getting his car repaired, Vickers then calculatedly sought Stewart out to execute a form of NASCAR frontier justice that saw Vickers pile-drive Stewart’s car entering the tight hairpin turn just before the start/finish.
When the dust settled, Stewart’s car was marooned atop a stack of tires. Both drivers acknowledged their deliberate misdeeds postrace and moved on without further ado. (Five years later, Stewart tabbed Vickers to fill in for him when he was recovering from a back injury.)
The Stewart-Vickers skirmish illustrates the evolution that NASCAR road course racing has undergone over the last decade-plus. Historically, races at Sonoma and Watkins Glen International, the other road course on the Cup schedule, were about a driver’s ability to turn left and right, the technical know-how of a crew chief to set up a chassis to handle sweeping corners, heavy-braking turns, elevation changes, all along with devising a strategy to compensate for how difficult it often was to pass.
But the road racing game has changed in NASCAR. No longer do a select few dominate. A deeper talent pool featuring drivers with diverse backgrounds, extensive time spent testing on the track, and in state-of-the-art simulators off it has leveled out the playing field. Parity is rampant, with 10 different drivers having won the past 10 Sonoma races.
“If you’re a good driver and you want to be in the top tier of NASCAR, you’ve got to drive well everywhere,” Busch said. “The road courses were a bit more of a specialty back in the day, and you used to be able to take advantage of the guys that didn’t put forth the full effort in the road courses, but not anymore.”
The tightened competition has meant that to succeed, drivers now have to take more chances — to attempt maneuvers they wouldn’t have considered when Stewart and Jeff Gordon combined to win seven of nine Sonoma events between 1998 to 2006.
That heightened aggressiveness is why what transpires on road courses now resembles something one would normally see on a short track. Fenders are banged, tempers are raised, and often the best way to make a pass is by merely shoving a competition aside.
“This, to me, is like a road course, short-track race where there’s going to be some beating, and banging and moving some people out of the way, for sure,” said Kyle Busch, Kurt’s younger brother, who won at Sonoma in 2015.
Stewart demonstrated Busch’s point a year ago when he unexpectedly found himself in contention and wanting to take advantage of the situation started, “driving like an A-hole out here.”
That became apparent when on the final corner of the final lap, Stewart body-slammed Denny Hamlin out of the lead then drove away to take the win. The victory snapped Stewart’s 84-race winless streak and assured that his last season before retirement would have an enduring moment.
Afterward, there were no hard feelings. Hamlin was among the first to congratulate Stewart in victory lane. Both drivers understood that close-quarters racing is now standard at Sonoma — that the laid-back mindset that once permeated road course racing is long gone.
“Obviously, I still think about that battle with Tony last year,” Hamlin said. “We came so close to the win that weekend, and it was pretty disappointing to come up just short. It definitely restored our confidence when we went to Watkins Glen later that year, and I got my first-career road course win. We’ll use that momentum to our advantage this weekend to hopefully repeat similar results.”
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