(Photo Credit: Robert Laberge/Getty Images for NASCAR)
For the first time this season, it was the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series turn to embark on a different type of adventure leaving the oval tracks behind for the art of turning left and right on the road course at Infineon Raceway located in the beautiful Sonoma Valley in Northern California (wine country) and what a sight it is.
For some reason or another I always seem to look forward to all of the road course races, whether it’s in the Sonoma Valley or up at Watkins Glen in New York, it’s a different type of racing that is a welcome treat to watch, racing at Infineon is always a challenge for NASCAR drivers which does introduce a new breed of drivers known as road course specialists.
Road course specialists are called upon twice a year for a couple of reasons, however now it’s not really simply for victories, but its more for car owners trying to either keep their car from falling outside of the top 35 or get them in the top 35 and this past weekend, that was mostly the case.
The thing about road course ringers is in NASCAR, we already have drivers that do well on these tracks including Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, last year’s winner Juan Montoya, Robby Gordon that seems to have the key, but nonetheless, bring them on starting with Boris Said, then you have Ganassi Racing pulling Reed Sorenson in favor of Scott Pruett, Haas Racing running Max Papis to the #66, DEI putting in Ron Fellows for Regan Smith which is a good move, Fellows is the exception as he has won a couple of times in both the Truck Series and now Nationwide Series at Watkins Glen years ago.
Personally, pulling a driver from his full-time ride in favor of a road course ringers twice a year does nothing for the team, nor for the drivers and the fans, first the regular driver doesn’t learn anything not being in the car and can you imagine the fans must think when they don’t see their favorite driver in the race, but another driver in their car instead, that doesn’t work. Now putting road course ringers or specialists in additional cars is a good thing, it gives Cup drivers a challenge and the fans see someone new to watch.
With that said, the title says it all, road course racing isn’t what it use to be in the NASCAR Cup Series, even from a year ago, but it does have its moments and on Sunday, 110 laps on this road course which is a short race mind you, had its moments, I would say road course racing in the Cup Series seems to come down to pit strategy, when do you pit for fuel and that’s what seemed to change the leader board around quite a bit with Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart coming out on top while Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson got the other end. But even with happening twice, this one like most of the season was all about survival and surviving a couple of big ones including in the late stages when Kevin Harvick wheel hooped going into turn 7 wrecking the two drivers in front of him which is very unusual to see happen – hitting McMurray and Stewart, oh I hated it for Tony Stewart, this is the time of year that Smoke really comes on winning race after race in route to the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
And it also lead to David Gilliland and Jeff Gordon behind the leader Kyle Busch which equaled no challenger for the win as Busch wins again… wow that’s 5 wins, my father asked me a question, how did the #18 team get so good so fast, last year they couldn’t buy a good finish and this year 5 wins, no way, Kyle Busch is good, but not that good like I said in a previous post.
Road course racing is what it is and so far this season with both the Nationwide race in Mexico and the Cup Series race in Sonoma, its entertaining to watch especially the last 20 laps or so, that’s go time in a race, get what you can get.
The only road course specialist that really impressed me was Marcos Ambrose who went out with gear problems after an impressive top 5 - top 10 run, of course he gave some drivers a shot or two... otherwise, no suck luck.
What about Infineon Raceway itself – meaning the length of the track and race distance? 110 laps isn’t all that much to begin with, however while I would like to see that stay the same, the course that they use should be upgraded, two-three passing zones on this entire road course, not good, that’s mainly turn 7a and really turn 11 with turn 4a coming into play somewhat, other than that, no luck there.
What should NASCAR use for a course layout, well how looking at the map below, use turn 4 (passing area), down to turns 5-6 and down to 7a, yes 7a, 7a is passing, and keep the original turn 11, that would be longer and better for racing 110 laps. Comments.
- Racedriven
