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.
1. Kyle Larson: Larson started on the pole at Michigan and led 96 laps on his way to the win at Michigan. Larson pulled away from Chase Elliott on a restart with five laps to go to claim his second win of the year.
It may surprise you to learn that Chase Elliott has the series-best driver rating (125.1) at Michigan. In his only two starts last year, he earned two runner-up finishes. Elliott also has the series-best average finish (2.000), average running position (4.300) and the series-most laps in the top 15 (391 laps, 97.8 percent).
Thirty-five different drivers have won at Pocono with Jeff Gordon leading the way with six wins. Of the active drivers, five have multiple wins at the track including Denny Hamlin (four), Jimmie Johnson (three), and Kurt Busch (three). Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. both have two wins.
They went and done it. Kyle Busch comes in leading early in the race at Dover. For whatever reason, when they went to tighten up the rear left lug nuts, the air gun was removing them instead. When the jack dropped, the car left, and shortly after the tire left the car. Bad news for Kyle. Today, bad news for the crew.
When it comes to extraordinary television, sit on the edge of your seat excitement, Dover under green will not exactly get your heart racing. In fact, Sunday’s race was more of a cautionary tale. When the yellow waved, the interest spiked.
By Lap 65, Kurt Busch was in second place and looked to have a car to run up front Sunday at Dover in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism. However, by Lap 97, he was in the garage and out of the race after hitting the wall a second time.
Some things are just not like the others. May featured the World 600 and the All-Star race at Charlotte, the spring derby at Talladega, events a fellow can get excited about. This week. Dover.
