That’s right sports fans. NASCAR drivers will actually have to make right hand turns this week as the action moves out to California for the twisty 2.52 mile road course at the Sonoma Raceway.
While some of those good ole boys driving NASCAR actually enjoy the road courses, others are leery of anything other than a steady diet of left turns all day long. To add insult to injury for those guys, the Sonoma Raceway actually requires them to go up and down hills, well, inclines at least. No flat track this one.
No driver in NASCAR history has had more success on the road circuit races that Jeff Gordon in the number 24 Chevrolet driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Gordon has five wins at Sonoma in his career. No one else has more than two. But then Jeff Gordon is the current points leader in the Sprint Cup standings with 537 points gathered this season with five top-fives, eleven top-tens and one win.
Defending Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson is a pretty good road course driver himself and he is right on Gordon’s tail with 522 points. Johnson now has three wins this year after a rather slow start for the number 48 car. He has also managed six top-fives and seven top-tens.
Both Gordon and Johnson are originally from California and they headline the Hendrick Motorsports stable that has become accustomed to victory at Sonoma.
Then there’s Dale. NASCAR’s adopted son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. He may not be from California, but don’t count him out of any race. Dale Jr. was driving go carts under his daddy’s watchful eye before he had a bike. Junior knows his way around a racetrack.
Earnhardt follows close behind his teammates in the Sprint Cup standings with 514 points accumulated from two wins, seven top-fives and ten top-tens. But Junior may just have a little too much of that old stock car, flat track, left turn tradition from the old South in his veins. Those twisty tracks like Sonoma and Watkin’s Glenn always seem to give him fits.
But Dale also drives for Herdrick Motorsports which has won the past five NASCAR races in a row and appears to be the dominate force in 2014. However, no driver has won at Sonoma twice in the past nine years.
Las Vegas handicappers had Marcos Ambrose and Kevin Harvick listed as favorites at Sonoma at +400 with Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch close behind at +500.
