Toyota/Save Mart 350 Race Preview

Infineon Raceway Sonoma -- 06/20/2010

Author: Jed Henson

Published: Wednesday Jun 16 2010 9:20am

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series heads to Sonoma, Calif., this week for an interesting run at Infineon Raceway, a 1.99-mile road course featuring elevation changes and, most interestingly, right-hand turns. Of the 36 races on the 2010 schedule, 34 are run on ovals. Only twice a year does the series visit the twisty road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen, N.Y., and when it does, NASCAR handicappers must adjust to the fact that many of the regular Sprint Cup front runners simply stink on road courses, and some of the typically slow drivers jump way up in value on these tracks. In addition, we must also ponder the value of the ringers—i.e., the road-course specialists imported into NASCAR just for these races.

As always, we must attempt to gauge Sonoma's predictability as well. On the down side, the historical data is relatively thin because we have only the two 2009 road-course races to evaluate (there's little point in looking at any oval-track data this week). In addition, the race is certain to feature a fair number of wrecks, and road-course wrecks have a tendency to collect other cars, a tendency the move to double-file restarts seems to exacerbate.

On the other hand, Weather.com's forecast at press time calls for pretty terrific weather this week, with consistent temps, mostly sunny skies, and almost no chance of rain, so we should get good practice and qualifying data. Plus, Sonoma's pit road is pretty roomy, and reduced pit-road congestion typically reduces pit-road trauma. Fuel-mileage doesn't seem to come into play excessively at Sonoma, and the track doesn't seem to provoke an above-average number of equipment failures either.

All in all, I think it's safe to rate Sonoma's predictability below average, but not horrible. Sprint Cup bettors therefore need better odds than they do on more predictable tracks to remain profitable.

Handicapping Sonoma
I first examined the practice, qualifying, and race data from the 2009 Sonoma and Watkins Glen races. I then weighted those results toward just the 2009 Sonoma data, a necessary move because Sonoma and Watkins Glen are vastly different.

The results placed a couple fresh faces in my preliminary top 10:

1. Marcos Ambrose
2. Juan Pablo Montoya
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Kasey Kahne
5. Denny Hamlin
6. A.J. Allmendinger
7. Ryan Newman
8. Clint Bowyer
9. Kyle Busch
10. Tony Stewart

Stay tuned for my race preview update this weekend.

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