NASCAR Cup Series

Team Penske has not only been the dominant Ford team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series so far this season, but one of the best in the entire sport. Between drivers Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano, Team Penske has won three races and led at least one lap in every race this season (953 combined total).

There is no doubt about it; winning is big in the Cup series this year. Race enough to be deemed a regular, sit among the top 30 in points, and a win pretty much gives one a pass to the promised land. It is exciting and has that all-important unpredictability factor we love.

As rumored last week, Hendrick Motorsports announced today that Panasonic is expanding their relationship with the organization. The new agreement has Panosonic featured as the primary sponsor on Jeff Gordon’s car for this weekend’s race at Sonoma Raceway and the August 31 race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford team enter this weekend riding a three-race streak of top-three results. The strong results include two second-place finishes and one third-place finish that have moved Keselowski to within 47 points of the series point leader, Jeff Gordon, in the driver standings.

Marcos Ambrose, driver of the No. 9 Ford Fusion, heads into the first road course race of the season this weekend looking for his first win at Sonoma Raceway. Ambrose spoke about his success on road courses and more in the weekly NASCAR teleconference Wednesday.

For the first time fans will have the opportunity to watch driver introductions from the track prior to the Goody’s® Headache Relief Shot® 500 Powered by Kroger at Martinsville Speedway.

"As a group I think that all of us are excited to go to Sonoma. For me particularly I look forward to it based on our third place run last year and our really good road race efforts lately. My pit crew has been great and Jimmy Fennig has been calling great races, so all of that stuff will come into play at Sonoma.

“I’m looking forward to some road racing at Sonoma, something different this weekend. We tested a little while ago at VIR and also did some schooling out at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah. The keys to Sonoma are staying on the race track, gas mileage, taking care of the brakes and transmission.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie Michael Annett and his Pilot Flying J Chevrolet SS team will venture to Sonoma Raceway in California this weekend for the first road course event of the 2014 season.

Sonoma Preview: The Series heads to Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway for the first of two road course races on the 2014 NASCAR schedule. Hamlin owns a pair of top-10 finishes in eight previous starts at the 1.99-mile, 12-turn circuit, including a career-best fifth best result in 2009.