Sonoma Event Info:
Date: Sunday, July 13
Time: 3:30 p.m. ET
Series: NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Location: Sonoma, Calif.
Format: 110 Laps, 218.9 Miles, Stages: 25-55-110
TV: TNT
Radio: PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90)

Weekend Schedule:
Saturday: 1:35 p.m. ET Cup Practice (TruTV, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Saturday: 2:40 p.m. ET, Cup Qualifying (TruTV, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Sunday: 3:30 p.m. ET, Cup Race (TNT, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)

Pace Laps:

• Sonoma Raceway hosts points race No. 20 this weekend as the Cup Series heads West for its annual summer date on the 12-turn road course.
• Chris Buescher leads the Cup Series this season with an average starting position of 10.2, anchored by 10 starts inside the top 10.
• Ryan Preece has five top-10 finishes over his last eight races, including at the Chicago Street Course last weekend (7th).
• The NASCAR In-Season Tournament continues this weekend at Sonoma, with one RFK Ford advancing into the “Elite 8”. The third-round matchup is as follows:
• No. 15 Ryan Preece vs. No. 23 Tyler Reddick

6 Team Info:
Driver: Brad Keselowski
Crew Chief: Jeremy Bullins
Partner: Castrol

17 Team Info:
Driver: Chris Buescher
Crew Chief: Scott Graves
Partner: BuildSubmarines.com

60 Team Info:
Driver: Ryan Preece
Crew Chief: Derrick Finley
Partner: Body Guard

Keselowski at Sonoma
Starts: 14
Wins: —
Top-10s: 3
Poles: —

• Keselowski makes his 15th Cup start in Sonoma this weekend, where in 14 starts prior he has three top-10s and a 15.9 average finish.
• His best-career finish at the 12-turn course came in 2017 when he ran third. Most recently he finished 13th in 2024, and 16th in 2023.
• Keselowski has three top-10 qualifying efforts with a best of ninth in 2021, and an average of 18.8.

Buescher at Sonoma
Starts: 8
Wins: —
Top-10s: 3
Poles: —

• Buescher is in line for his ninth Cup start from Sonoma on Sunday, where he’s fresh off three consecutive top five results. He finished third in this race a season ago, ran fourth in 2023, and came home in second in 2022.
• He also has qualified inside the top 10 in two of the last three races, with five efforts of 12th or better in his eight starts.
• In his Cup career, Buescher has a 12.7 average finish on road courses with 16 top 10s in 38 starts.

Preece at Sonoma
Starts: 4
Wins: —
Top-10s: —
Poles: —

• Preece makes his fifth Cup start at Sonoma where he has best finish of 13th in 2023. He carries an average finish of 20.3 into this weekend’s event, his second highest of any road course on the schedule.
• He holds an average starting position of 24.8, including a P20 starting spot in his debut race.
• Across 24 career races on road courses, Preece has three top 10s and a 22.1 average finish.

RFK Historically at Sonoma
Cup Wins: 2 (Mark Martin, 1997; Carl Edwards, 2014)

• Looking for the Hat Trick in the ‘Golden State’: In 113 NCS starts at Sonoma, RFK has recorded two wins, 17 top-five finishes, 38 top-10 finishes and has led 313 laps. Former RFK driver Carl Edwards earned the organization’s most recent victory at the road course in 2014.
• Hasta La Vista Baby: RFK has left the California road course victorious on two occasions in the NCS with former drivers Mark Martin and Carl Edwards. Martin earned the victory in 1997 after starting from the pole and leading 69 laps, while Edwards started fourth and led 26 laps in the 2014 running of this event.
• RFK on the Road: As an organization, RFK has made 249 starts on road courses in the Cup Series with five wins, 87 top 10s and 41 finishes inside the top five with a 17.4 average finish.

RFK Sonoma Wins

1997 Martin Cup

1997 Ruttman Truck

2014 Edwards Cup

Last Time Out & Where They Stand
Chicago: Preece 7th; Buescher 18th; Keselowski 37th.

Points Standings (17: 15th, 60: 17th, 6: 28th): Buescher sits 35 points above the cutline while Preece remains just two points behind Bubba Wallace for the final playoff spot. Keselowski stayed in 28th after an early-lap incident at Chicago.

SONOMA

Saturday, July 12 — NASCAR Xfinity Series, 4:30 p.m. ET (CW)
Sunday, July 13 — NASCAR Cup Series, 3:30 p.m. ET (TNT)

After running on the streets of Chicago last weekend, the NASCAR Cup and NASCAR Xfinity Series return to the road as Sonoma Raceway hosts its annual event on Saturday and Sunday. Ford drivers Ryan Preece and Zane Smith will be looking to advance in the In-Season Challenge on the Cup side while Ford’s Xfinity drivers continue their march toward the postseason.

PREECE HAVING CAREER YEAR

Ryan Preece is in the midst of his best NASCAR Cup Series season as he comes off a Ford-best seventh-place finish in Chicago. Preece, who is in his sixth year running a full-time schedule, goes into Sunday’s road course race at Sonoma Raceway with five top-10 efforts in the last eight races. Overall, the Connecticut native has eight top-10 runs this season, which is three more than his previous single-season high of five that he set last year with Stewart-Haas Racing. This weekend will be the fifth time Preece has started a Cup race at Sonoma. His best finish came two years ago when he was 13th.

IN-SEASON CHALLENGE UPDATE

Two Ford drivers remain alive as the inaugural In-Season Challenge reaches the quarterfinal round this weekend at Sonoma Raceway. Ryan Preece, who eliminated fellow Ford driver Noah Gragson in the Round of 16, will be matched against Tyler Reddick. Zane Smith, who saw his run continue after he edged Chris Buescher by four spots in Chicago, will face Ty Gibbs with a berth in the semifinals on the line.

HALL OF FAME TIES

Ford has won eight times at Sonoma and the one thing all of those winners have in common is that their 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.

JOEY LOGANO: DO YOU LIKE HAVING ROAD COURSE RACES BUNCHED TOGETHER OR WOULD YOU RATHER HAVE THEM SPREAD OUT? “We’ve got to do them, so I’m kind of good either way. I just think in the playoffs you need to have a good mixture of racetracks throughout the 10 weeks, but the other regular season races, I mean, if we’re gonna do them, then I don’t really care. Whatever works best for the schedule and weather and fans and that type of stuff is fine with me.”

RYAN BLANEY: “I don’t think it’s any more difficult than going different places week to week. Whether it’s road course to oval or road course to road course, you just understand the schedule and you know what to do and you understand the flow of it. I think it’s actually nicer that we can go two road courses in a row because it just keeps you in that mindset of a road course. Every track layout is different no matter what it is, so that’s already difficult, but I think it’s actually better just staying in that mindset for a couple of weeks.”

CHRIS BUESCHER: “We talk about momentum in our sport all the time and while it’s made up in some people’s minds, it works more times than not and, to me, it means that if you can get momentum on your side for these early road courses, then I think it can carry over into Sonoma and the Glen as well. So, I’m curious to see how it all plays out. We’ll kind of get some feedback from the industry and from our fans and see where their mind is at, but I’m on board right now.”

RYAN PREECE: “I’m a big fan of having back-to-back road courses. I feel like after Mexico we’ve been really good. We were good at COTA in the race and then transferred that to Mexico. I feel really confident about where our team is at as far as continuing to build and the direction we’re heading for road courses. Some people look at road courses as a wild card where you don’t really know what you could have. I look at it as an opportunity to attack.”

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.

RUDD RUCKUS

When Ford took the checkered flag at Sonoma Raceway for the first time it came in controversial fashion. That’s because Davey Allison, the man credited with winning the Banquet Frozen Foods 300 in 1991, was sent spinning by Ricky Rudd as they were approaching the white flag. Even though Rudd, one of the most recent inductees into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, ended up crossing the finish line first, he received the black flag from NASCAR for rough driving and awarded Allison with the trophy. The win was Allison’s first and only one on a road course and snapped an eight-race streak that had seen either Rudd or Rusty Wallace in Victory Lane at Watkins Glen International or Sonoma Raceway.

MAYER AND CREED DO IT AGAIN

The Haas Factory Team duo of Sheldon Creed and Sam Mayer have come out of the box strong in their first season with the new organization. Even though both drivers are still looking for their first win of the year, they have been consistently in the mix as evidenced by last week’s race in Chicago. Creed led nine laps and won the second stage before finishing third while Mayer ended up eighth. That represented the sixth time both drivers have finished in the top 10 of the same race (Daytona, Las Vegas, Homestead, Martinsville, Nashville and Chicago). Mayer, who is a Ford-best third in the series point standings, comes to Sonoma after a third-place finish a year ago. Creed, who is eighth in points, was the runner-up in this event last season.

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

FORD’S NASCAR XFINITY SERIES WINNERS AT SONOMA

2023 – Aric Almirola

The Ford Mustang, celebrating its 61st anniversary in 2025, is the world’s best selling sports car. It is also one of the planet’s most popular race cars. With Mustang-based race cars competing in international sports car competition (GT3 and GT4), NASCAR, NHRA, Formula Drift, in Australian Supercars, at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb and in its own bespoke one-make series – Mustang Cup and Mustang Challenge – the platform has an unprecedented global reach. This weekend, 38 Mustang race cars are scheduled to race across all disciplines. Learn more at FordPerformance.com.

Partnership Expands Knighthead’s Motorsport Footprint, Linking NASCAR and WEC Programs

STATESVILLE, N.C. (July 8, 2025)  –  LEGACY MOTOR CLUB announced today that Hertz, one of the world’s largest mobility solutions providers, will serve as the primary sponsor of John Hunter Nemechek’s No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover Motor Speedway on July 20. The announcement marks another chapter in the evolving partnership between LEGACY MOTOR CLUB and team co-owner Knighthead Capital Management, LLC, on behalf of its investors, which also co-owns Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA racing team in the FIA World Endurance Championship (“WEC”).

The iconic black-and-gold Hertz livery will make its NASCAR return on the high-banked concrete mile at Dover—known as the “Monster Mile”— bringing international motorsports synergy under the Knighthead umbrella. Hertz Car Sales – which offers thousands of well-maintained, high-quality used vehicles online and in person at more than 40 locations nationwide – also will be featured prominently on the racecar.

“We’re excited to see Hertz and Hertz Car Sales on the No. 42 this summer at Dover,” said John Hunter Nemechek, driver of the LEGACY MOTOR CLUB Toyota. “It’s awesome to represent such a recognizable global brand, and even more special knowing it ties into the broader Knighthead motorsport vision that spans NASCAR and endurance racing.”

Hertz’s entry into the NASCAR Cup Series complements its sponsorship of Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s No. 12 and No. 38 Cadillacs in the WEC. This cross-series sponsorship strategy, backed by Knighthead, exemplifies a global approach to brand visibility and performance alignment across premier racing platforms.

“Hertz has a proud legacy in motorsports and we’re excited to expand our presence by partnering with LEGACY MOTOR CLUB and John Hunter Nemechek for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover,” said Gil West, Hertz Chief Executive Officer. “This collaboration not only highlights our iconic brand on one of racing’s biggest stages, but also showcases Hertz Car Sales as a trusted source of high-quality used vehicles. It’s an exciting opportunity to connect with fans and customers through the thrill of racing.”

Fans will get their first look at the Hertz-branded No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE during practice and qualifying at Dover on July 19, with race coverage airing nationally on TNT Sports.

About Hertz
Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. is one of the world’s leading car rental and mobility solutions providers. Its subsidiaries, including The Hertz Corporation, and licensees operate the Hertz, Dollar, Thrifty, and Firefly vehicle rental brands, with more than 11,000 rental locations in 160 countries around the globe. The Company also operates the Hertz Car Sales brand, which offers a range of quality, competitively priced used cars for sale online and at locations across the United States, and the Hertz 24/7 car-sharing business in Europe. For more information about Hertz, visit www.hertz.com.

About Knighthead Capital Management LLC
Knighthead Capital Management, LLC was co-founded in 2008 by Tom Wagner  and  Ara Cohen and has grown to become a diversified asset management platform with an experienced team of investment professionals, specializing in fundamental analysis, operational and financial turnarounds and risk management. Knighthead’s long-term objective is to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns for its clients while emphasizing the preservation of capital. Knighthead manages assets across a variety of investment vehicles including insurance asset management, real estate lending, and closed and open-ended vehicles.

About LEGACY MOTOR CLUB: LEGACY MC is a premier auto racing organization co-owned by seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion and 2024 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee, Jimmie Johnson and Knighthead Capital Management, LLC. Drawing from a rich tradition of success, LEGACY MC is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of motorsport and setting new standards of excellence. The CLUB competes under the Toyota Gazoo Racing banner in the NASCAR Cup Series with the No. 43 Toyota Camry XSE piloted by Erik Jones and the No. 42 Toyota Camry XSE driven by John Hunter Nemechek. Johnson also races on a limited basis in the No. 84 Toyota Camry XSE. With NASCAR legend and Hall of Famer Richard Petty, “The King”, serving as CLUB Ambassador, LEGACY MC blends timeless racing traditions with a new forward-thinking vision. As an inclusive community for motorsport enthusiasts, LEGACY MC honors both its storied past and the promising future of its members, always striving for victory and championship glory at the pinnacle of NASCAR competition.