SONOMA
Sunday, June 28– NASCAR Cup Series, 3:30 p.m. ET (TNT)
After competing on an active military base for the first time, the NASCAR Cup Series will return to a more traditional road course this weekend as Sonoma Raceway hosts its annual event on Sunday. It also marks the start of the five-week In-Season Challenge, where drivers compete against each other in a bracket style format with the winner advancing.
BLANEY CONTINUES STREAK
Ryan Blaney ran his streak of Top 10 finishes to five after a ninth-place effort on Sunday in San Diego. Blaney, who led a race-high 12 laps and won the first stage, remains the highest Ford Racing driver in the point standings as he sits third overall. He will be making his 10th NASCAR Cup Series start at Sonoma Raceway this weekend and has finished 10th or better five times. His lone road course victory came in 2018 at the inaugural Bank of America Roval 400.
SMITH HAVING CAREER YEAR
Zane Smith is in the midst of having his best NASCAR Cup Series campaign and his effort in San Diego was further proof as he was Ford’s top finisher in fourth. That marked the California native’s sixth Top-10 run of the season, which is one more than his previous single-season high of five last year. Smith, who won the 2022 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship with Front Row Motorsports, has three Cup starts at Sonoma Raceway with his best finish being 16th in 2024.
HALL OF FAME TIES
Ford has won eight times at Sonoma and the one thing all of those winners have in common is that the owners are members of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Robert Yates (Class of 2018) won this event three times (Davey Allison, 1991; Ernie Irvan, 1994; and Ricky Rudd, 2002), while Jack Roush (Class of 2019) has two victories (Mark Martin, 1997 and Carl Edwards, 2014). Bud Moore (Class of 2011) took Geoffrey Bodine to Victory Lane in 1993 while Roger Penske (Class of 2019) did the same with Rusty Wallace in 1996 and Tony Stewart (Class of 2020) with Kevin Harvick in 2017.
SITTING ON 749
The next Ford win will be its 750th all-time in NASCAR’s top series. Ned Jarrett is Ford’s win leader with 43 while Bill Elliott is second with 40. Shirtless Jimmy Florian scored the Blue Oval’s first series victory when he upset the likes of Lee Petty, Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly at Dayton Speedway on June 25, 1950. Florian earned his nickname after getting out of his 1950 flathead Ford without a shirt. Overall, 91 drivers have won at least one series race with Ford, including notable drivers Mario Andretti, Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty, and Dale Earnhardt.
CHRIS BUESCHER: “To go from San Diego to a place like Sonoma that has more flow, more smoothness, and more elevation change without the jumps, it will be a big relief in a lot of ways. I like road racing and the team has put fast race cars under me. Something clicks when we get there and we’re able to take the flow of that racetrack and turn it into results.”
ZANE SMITH: “I enjoy the area of Sonoma and just spending time up in Napa, but from a racetrack standpoint the elevation is certainly fun there. I honestly have enjoyed the repave with how it’s aging. It’s aging dramatically, but I feel like it’s fun right now. The differences between what we raced on in San Diego and what we’ll see at Sonoma are dramatic just because of the bumps alone.”
HARVICK WINS FIRST RACE WITH FORD
Kevin Harvick stretched his fuel over the final 40 laps in 2017 to bring home his first win with Ford and first win at Sonoma, besting teammate Clint Bowyer and fellow Ford Brad Keselowski in a 1-2-3 showing for the Blue Oval. Harvick, who was part of the Stewart-Haas Racing organization that switched to Ford prior to the 2017 season, took the lead from Brad Keselowski with 22 laps to go and won for the 36th time in his career as the race ended under yellow. Harvick, who eventually went on to win 25 races with Ford, finished his career with 60 overall triumphs before retiring after the 2023 season. He will be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in January.
EDWARDS NETS FIRST ROAD COURSE WIN
Recent NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Carl Edwards held off Jeff Gordon on the final lap to post the first road win of his NCS career in 2014 with car owner Jack Roush. He did it thanks to a two-stop strategy and a timely caution. Edwards had just pitted on lap 70 when NASCAR threw a caution for debris one lap later. While most of the field decided to pit for new tires, Edwards and fellow Ford driver Marcos Ambrose stayed out and gained the necessary track position that put both in position to win. Ambrose took the lead from Clint Bowyer on lap 81 and brought Edwards with him, but another restart with 25 to go saw Ambrose and Edwards sharing the front row. Edwards got the jump and took the lead, which he never surrendered, although a hard-charging Gordon made it interesting on the final lap.
FORD’S NASCAR CUP SERIES WINNERS AT SONOMA
1991 – Davey Allison
1993 – Geoffrey Bodine
1994 – Ernie Irvan
1996 – Rusty Wallace
1997 – Mark Martin
2002 – Ricky Rudd
2014 – Carl Edwards
2017 – Kevin Harvick
The Ford Mustang® coupe is America’s best-selling sports car and has a global racing presence. With Mustang-based race cars competing in international sports car competition (GT3 and GT4), NASCAR, NHRA, Formula Drift, in Supercars, at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and in its own bespoke regional one-make series – Mustang Cup and Mustang Challenge – the platform has an unprecedented global reach. This weekend, 44 Mustang race cars are scheduled to compete across all active disciplines. Learn more about Mustang at www.FordRacing.com.
