NASCAR Cup Series

Retired United States Army General Wesley Clark will serve as the Grand Marshal for the 59th annual Coke Zero 400 Powered By Coca-Cola, the Independence Day holiday weekend classic scheduled for Saturday night, July 1 at Daytona International Speedway.

Set to make his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) debut this weekend at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, veteran road racer Josh Bilicki will have plenty of support when he takes the green flag in Sunday’s Toyota / Save Mart 350.

Jeff Gordon leads the series with five victories at the road course, including three consecutively, from 1998 – 2000. Tony Stewart has three trophies but did you know he captured the final win of his Cup career last year at Sonoma, ending an 84-race winless drought?

It is ironic that the two tracks that feature folks turning to the right are in California and New York, where you would think left would be the preferred direction. Sonoma is the perfect venue to feature our hot drivers, with temperatures this week in the 90s, though promises to be in the low 80s come Sunday. It a facility well used, with 340 days of racing events featured annually.

The NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series travels to Sonoma Raceway this weekend while the XFINITY Series and the Camping World Truck Series head to Iowa Speedway.

Michigan Recap: Denny Hamlin finished fourth in Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, capturing his third top-five finish of the season in the #11 FedEx Office Toyota. Hamlin lined up second for the final restart alongside Kyle Larson with five laps remaining, but the non-preferred inside line proved menacing, as Hamlin slipped to third by Turn 2. He battled with Joey Logano for the remaining circuits and took the checkered flag in fourth.

Richard Childress Racing in Wine Country ... In 66 starts at the 10-turn stadium course, Richard Childress Racing owns two wins, with Dale Earnhardt in the 1995 Save Mart Supermarkets 300 and with Robby Gordon in the Save Mart 350 in 2003, one pole award (Earnhardt, 1995), 14 top-five and 26 top-10 finishes. The Welcome, N.C.,-based team has led 140 laps at Sonoma, completed 6,894 of the 6,940 laps contested (99.3 percent) and recorded just one DNF (Did Not Finish) over that stretch (1989-2016).

Ryan Blaney and the Wood Brothers Racing Team will be back to their Motorcraft/Quick Lane livery when they head to Sonoma Raceway in northern California for Sunday’s Save Mart 350 road race.

Technical track: “Sonoma is a real technical racetrack,” Allmendinger said. “It’s like a short track. You are beating and banging on each other. You can make passes there. The tires go away quick, but if you can conserve the tires better you can make passes. It’s a challenging racetrack. The strategy has got you wondering when that last yellow is going to fall. If that yellow falls, do you pit, do you not pit?

A marketing partnership between Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) teams Rick Ware Racing (RWR) and Premium Motorsports will allow veteran short track racer Tommy Regan to make his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut in Sunday’s Toyota / Save Mart 350 at Sonoma (Calf.) Raceway.