Sonoma Raceway Tag

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter SONOMA, Calif. – Simon Pagenaud’s championship battle will get a little bit easier as he captured his seventh pole of the season for Sunday’s GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway. and led a Team Penske sweep of the front two rows. The Frenchman initially reset the track record in the first qualifying group and set another fast time in Q2 to prepare himself for the Firestone Fast Six. He then bided his time during the six minute pole-determining session while his rivals took to theRead More

By Josh Farmer, IndyCar Reporter SONOMA, Calif. — Marco Andretti paced the final practice leading up to today’s qualifying session for tomorrow’s Go Pro Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway. The Andretti Autosport driver set the quickest lap of the weekend at 1:16.3052 on his fifth lap of the session. His lap was just five one-hundreths of a second off the track record set by Will Power last year. Andretti led Team Penske’s Juan Pablo Montoya, who was just .0704s shy of Andretti’s quickest time. Andretti Autosport cars faredRead More

Team Penske announced today that it has reached a partnership extension with industry-leading home improvement store company Menards for the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series season and beyond.  The easily-identifiable bright yellow paint scheme of Menards will continue to shine on track with 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series championship contender Simon Pagenaud and the No. 22 Dallara/Chevrolet for 10 races in 2017, including the 101st running of the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 28. “Partnering Menards with our Verizon IndyCar Series program just makes sense. The company’s deep Midwest roots are aRead More

SHOW #417 – Guest: Chase Elliott – We recap the amazing finish from Sonoma, hear from Tony Stewart in rare form, back to NBC, Danica officiates GoCarts, the Townley Vs. Gallagher smackdown, the latest on Matt Tifft, and a full Daytona preview. Hosted by Kerry Murphey and Toby Christie DOWNLOAD HERE CREDITS: Hosts: Kerry Murphey & Toby Christie Executive Producer: Kerry Murphey Music: Russell Nash Audio Director Voice Over: Thomas Moog SUBSCRIBE FREE HERE RSS FEED RADIO STATIONS CLICK HERE SUBSCRIBE FROM iTUNES: Take us with you! Subscribe to ourRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Is there a sport filled with more conspiracy theories than NASCAR? In a sport where life and death are merely inches apart, many people still believe that drivers would be willing to fix outcomes of events, just because. After Denny Hamlin nudged past Tony Stewart for the lead in turn seven on the final lap this past week in Sonoma, then went wide left in the final hair-pin turn, which gave Stewart plenty of room to force his car to the inside for the win,Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Earning millions of dollars, collecting numerous prestigious trophies, and having the support of an unrelenting fan base; just another day in the life of a NASCAR driver. But before you drift away into a day dream about how great it would be to chase the checkered flag at Daytona, be sure to check out the aftermath Kevin Harvick is dealing with following last Sunday’s race at Sonoma Raceway. Here is a tweet sent out by Kevin Harvick on Wednesday: Today’s pre draining foot status… #nastyRead More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor NASCAR has announced penalties stemming from the chaos that broke out in last week’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Drivin for Linemen 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park. John Wes Townley, who drives the No. 05 truck for Athenian Motorsports and Spencer Gallagher, who drives the No. 23 truck for GMS Racing each have wallets that are quite a bit lighter today after their on track wrestling match this past weekend. Townley, who first charged at Gallagher to start the fight was fined $15,000, while GallagherRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor In the midst of celebrating his first win in three years, Tony Stewart took a moment at Sonoma Raceway to look ahead to the future once he steps out of the driver’s seat for the final time when the checkered flag flies at Homestead in November. Stewart’s departure at season’s end marks the second top tier driver to step away from the cockpit in as many years with Jeff Gordon vacating the No. 24 car at the end of 2015. With both Stewart and GordonRead More

By Seth Eggert, NASCAR Writer Recently, road courses have not been kind to Denny Hamlin. In the last 12 road course races, Hamlin has had an average finish of 29.1. However, the weekend started promising after Hamlin qualified in sixth for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway. Hamlin slid back to ninth after the first caution, but never fell out of the top ten. Hamlin then settled into the ninth position until the second caution waved on lap 46. On the restart, Hamlin worked his way into the lead.Read More

By Toby Christie, NASCAR Editor Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a strong weekend all the way around in Sonoma. He was fast in both practice sessions, and he qualified a respectable 13th for Sunday’s race. In the early stages of the race, Earnhardt worked his way up into the top-five where he would stay for a good portion of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. Earnhardt looked poised to cruise to his third-consecutive top-10 finish at Sonoma Raceway. However Earnhardt got shuffled back late in the event, after a sluggish pit stop mired him inRead More