Making Right Turns In Wine Country At Sonoma

Before we get to NASCAR, I’d like to paraphrase the great Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols in their iconic song “Anarchy in the U.K.”:

Anarchy for NAS-CAR

Track layout looks real bizarre

Road course, no oval, right turns

They’re going to Sonoma, with Pearn’s return

‘Cause they’re racing in

Wine countr-ayyyyy

OK, OK, I’ll stop — the original song has been stuck in my head since finishing FX’s new miniseries Pistol. But one could call it anarchy in terms of the type of track, with how different road courses are from the normal ovals and the fact that it’s just the second such layout this season; we’re nearly halfway through 2022 and Sonoma Raceway, along with Circuit of the Americas, have been the only two races featuring left and right turns so far.

It does kick off a summer stretch where the NASCAR Cup Series visits a road layout every few weeks: Road America takes place two weeks after Sonoma to kick off July, while the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course closes out the month and Watkins Glen International is just a few weeks after that.

I already wrote about the lost art of road course ringing this year ahead of COTA, so though that seems relevant this weekend (Joey Hand and Scott Heckert the only real ringers in the field outside of AJ Allmendinger) we’ll touch on a few other aspects of making right (and left) turns.

This time, especially with the road course’s layout returning to the chute feature rather than using the standard carousel, let’s take a look at how dominance has been key despite changes to the circuit and some of the wildest moments in wine country.

Jeff Gordon truly excelled at Sonoma in the 2000s, winning three times in addition to his two wins the previous decade; his five total wine country triumphs are the most in NASCAR. Ricky Rudd scored a win, as did specialists Robby Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya; the latter scored his first career NASCAR victory.

Just under half (14) of the 32 Cup races at Sonoma have…