Sonoma Facts

compiled by Mike Forde
NASCAR media services

At Infineon Raceway:
History
• The track opened as a 2.52-mile road course and drag strip in 1968.
• The first NASCAR Sprint Cup race was held in 1989.
• The first nine races were 300 kilometers and switched to a 350k format in 1998.
• The track was re-configured to 1.949 miles in 1998 with the installation of an 890-foot chute between the original Turns 4 and 7.
• The track was reconfigured to 2.0 miles in 2001 and re-measured at 1.99 miles in 2002.

Notebook
• There have been 20 NASCAR Sprint Cup races at Infineon Raceway since the first race there in 1989.
• Rusty Wallace won the first NASCAR Sprint Cup pole.
• Ricky Rudd won the first NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
• 12 different drivers have won poles; only three have won more than one.
• Jeff Gordon (five) leads all pole winners. Ricky Rudd has four, including three consecutive (1990-92) and Rusty Wallace has two.
• There have been four different pole winners in the last four races.
• There have been consecutive pole winners three times: Ricky Rudd (1990-92) and Jeff Gordon (1998-99 and 2004-05).
• 12 different drivers have won races; five have multiple victories there – led by Jeff Gordon with five. Ernie Irvan, Ricky Rudd, Tony Stewart and Rusty Wallace (all with two) are the other multiple-race winners.
• Jeff Gordon is also the only driver with consecutive wins, winning in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
• There have been four different race winners in the last four races at Infineon: Tony Stewart (2005), Jeff Gordon (2006), Juan Pablo Montoya (2007) and Kyle Busch (2008). Montoya was a rookie when he won.
• Five of 20 races have been won by the pole winner, including three times by Jeff Gordon. His victory from the pole in 2004 is the most recent.
• The lowest starting position by a race winner was 32nd by Juan Pablo Montoya. Last season, Kyle Busch came close to matching that mark, starting 30th in his Infineon victory.
• Jeff Gordon is the all-time leader in NASCAR Sprint Cup road-course victories with nine. Five of Gordon’s road-course victories have occurred at Infineon Raceway. He has three more victories than any other driver at the Sonoma track. Gordon also heads the all-time pole winners list for Infineon Raceway with five and has led the most laps there with 437 – more than twice the total of Rusty Wallace (171), who has led the second most.

NASCAR in California
• There have been 124 NASCAR Sprint Cup races in California:
• 404 drivers from NASCAR’s three national series (all-time) have their home state recorded as California.
• There have been 32 race winners from California in NASCAR three national series: