It’s one of my favorite tracks in NASCAR because I grew up in the Sacramento area for my first 10 years and was often in the Bay area getting drove through the vineyards often. I loved it, and still do crave the occasional drive in spring when all the hills are green. The Cup Series made its Sonoma debut in 1989 with a Ricky Rudd win (I couldn’t get action down on Rudd).
I don’t know what it is about Sonoma that I like so much. There’s a romanization and happiness with the area that always makes me smile whether it’s remembering a day walk through San Francisco or my Mom, rest in peace, taking me to the beach at Bodega Bay often as a kid.
With the Sonoma layout, I think it’s the 160 feet of elevation changes throughout the circuit that first attracted me. Right and left turns made it tougher on some of the roundy-rounder NASCAR drivers. I liked that. There’s always bumping and banging. I liked that. Most of all, It just feels comfortable like home. I've lived in Las Vegas since 1980 and I never felt that way about Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
We’ve got all kinds of storylines to follow with 11 different winners in the first 15 races of the season and most of it all stems from the new NextGen car and the new 18 inch low-profile Goodyear tires. Just about everyone is equal now. The elite powers have been brought to their knees and they’re powerless to find some kind of creative engineering to make them faster as has been done forever in NASCAR.
One of the stories I’ll be paying close attention to is three-time Sonoma winner Martin Truex Jr. who BetMGM sportsbooks have posted at 9-to-1 to win. I’m interested in the story of his former crew chief Cole Pearn coming over for this race to be the car engineer for crew chief James Small. Pearn was running the show when Truex won at Sonoma in 2018 and 2019. Can Pearn make a difference? And what’s all this retirement talk about with Truex? Is it more about having no wins this season and knowing Xfinity Series driver JD Gibbs is going to need a Cup ride very soon. Someone has to go, who is it? Whatever the story may be, he’s the only active driver with three Sonoma wins.
“I love going there,” Truex said. “I love the racetrack, but this week is a huge question mark for everyone – new car, new tires, five gears instead of four, different brakes, and different everything. There’s a big question mark of if our old approach will still work there. Not just the way I drive the car, but how is the tire going to be and what will the falloff be? Do you still have to conserve tires or is it just going to be hammer down all day? A lot of things up in the air, but we’re doing everything we can to show up ready to go on Saturday for practice and qualifying and then the race on Sunday.”
READ MORE HERE....TOP-5 FIINSH PREDICTION ON VEGASINSIDER.COM
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