The fact this year’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 hasn’t already happened at Sonoma Raceway reflects just one of the changes to NASCAR weekend in the North Bay.
The event has been pushed back about a month from when it was previously held, to July 11-13 — long after schools let out for the summer, making it easier for students to attend.
"It’s fantastic to now have the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the heart of summer when more fans are free to travel and enjoy a great weekend of racing,” said Sonoma Raceway Executive Vice President and General Manager Brian Flynn. “Having three days of racing action gives our fans even more reasons to join us in Northern California.”
It makes for a busy July for the track, as the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals will take place just two weeks later.
“We’ve always had rental business, OEM, car clubs or whatnot after the NASCAR event in June and we typically have a 40-day window before NHRA comes to town,” Flynn said. “We’ll be turning the property over for the NHRA event (this time).”
Another change to the event is that it will be part of the quarterfinal round in the first-ever In-Season Challenge, which pits drivers against each other in a bracket format. The top 32 finishers in each race will move on to the next round. The winner takes home a $1 million prize after the final race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27.
“This is a landmark moment for both Sonoma Raceway and the sport of NASCAR,” Flynn explained in a press release. “The In-Season Challenge introduces an exciting, high-stakes format that energizes the summer portion of the season, and we are honored to host one of the key elimination rounds here in Sonoma. Fans can expect an intense and memorable weekend of racing.”
Kyle Larson will return to defend his 2024 championship on Sonoma’s 1.99-mile road course, which is filled with elevation changes and minimum room for error. The 32-year-old driver from Elk Grove also won the race in 2021.
“I think they're both special,” Larson said of his two wins at Sonoma so far. “It's always special to win at home and have friends and family at the racetrack. Your friends that don't typically get to go, I think, is the coolest piece of it. Both races, from what I remember, were very similar. We had the dominant car in both races, so hopefully going back again will be just as good.”
Another Sonoma win would move Larson into a tie for third-most all-time with Tony Stewart, two behind Vallejo native Jeff Gordon. Larson is also coming into the race as the defending winner of the Chili Bowl Nationals for the third time in his career.
“Those two guys are kind of my heroes of racing and I really look up to them,” Larson said. “We’ll just give our best effort. I think that's all you can do.”
Since joining Hendrick Motorsports, Larson has been one of the best drivers in the sport. It has been especially noticeable on road courses; he has won two of the last seven road-course races in the NextGen era. He’s had five wins on road courses since 2021.
Larson has won three times so far this season, putting him in a tie atop the playoff standings. He won on 1.5-mile tracks in Homestead-Miami and Kansas to go along with a dominating win at Bristol.
Also with multiple wins is Christopher Bell, who won three straight races at the beginning of the season — at EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta, at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin in the first road course race of the season, and at Phoenix Raceway. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver also won the $1 million All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro in May.
The only other driver with three trips to victory lane is Denny Hamlin, a Joe Gibbs Racing driver who won at Martinsville, Darlington and Michigan. However, Hamlin will come into Sonoma on a streak that no one wants to be on — last-place finishes in the last two Sonoma races.
“This could be, at the back of the field, a historic weekend at the Toyota/Save Mart 350,” NASCAR historian and LastCar.Info editor Brock Beard said. “Denny Hamlin … had a crash two years ago. He had a blown engine last year. He debuts a new sponsor with the AM/PM on the No. 11 for the race this year.
"If he somehow finishes last yet again, it will tie the current record by Tom Hubert, who was last in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Is it potentially going to be a third in a row, or is Denny going to turn things around and pull off a win there? I think that's going to be a very exciting story.”
The rest of the drivers locked into the playoffs on wins include William Byron, who won the Daytona 500, and Josh Berry, who got his first career Cup Series win in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas in March.
Also locked in because of wins are Austin Cindric (Talladega), Joey Logano (Texas), Ross Chastain (Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte), Ryan Blaney (Nashville) and road-course ace Shane Van Gisbergen, who won at Mexico City in NASCAR’s first international Cup Series race on foreign soil in the modern era.
Chase Briscoe won his first race with JGR at Pocono. The most popular driver, Chase Elliott, won the summer race at EchoPark — though it wasn’t a points-paying race — and the season-opening Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium on Feb. 2.
With his win in Mexico and on the Chicago streets, Van Gisbergen showed how much of a threat he is on every road course. The dominant performance has also made it to where most drivers will have to take their performance to another level to beat him.
“He’s by far way better than all of us at the road course stuff,” Larson said. “At COTA, I was really surprised. He was really good, but he was kind of just more normal to all of us. In Mexico, he was crazy fast. I guess we've got Chicago coming up and he’s gonna be crazy fast there, and then we'll see.
“I felt really good at Sonoma last year, but you never know. It’s fun racing against the caliber of driver that he is because it makes you elevate your game and try to figure out how to be better. He's just got his own unique style.”
With just seven races left till the NASCAR playoffs start on Labor Day weekend, the Toyota/Save Mart 350 will present an opportunity for a driver to win a race and lock into the 10-race playoffs.
Also new this season is that the networks that are carrying the races. While Fox Sports and NBC have their portion of the schedule with the Cup Series, the 10-race summer stretch has been broken up into two new partners. Amazon Prime will carry five races and Turner Sports will return to carry the five races after that, including Sonoma.
The 35th running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 is scheduled to air live on TNT/Max at 12:30 p.m. on July 13. Driver cams for all 36 drivers can be viewed on Max. There will be an alternate broadcast on TruTV. Practice and qualifying on Saturday will also be on Max and TruTV. The stage breaks will be at laps 25 and 55 in the 110-lap event.
Before the race, the Patriot Jet Air team will perform what has become a tradition in NASCAR’s lone visit to Northern California.
This will be the first Toyota/Save Mart 350 broadcast on TNT since 2014. Back then, it was still in June as part of what they had called the Summer 6-pack of races. Under the new TV deal, TNT and Turner Sports only have five races that they will carry before NBC Sports takes over for the remainder of the season.
Xfinity Series steals the show on Saturday, July 12, with newly sponsored Pit Boss/FoodMaxx 250.
For the third straight year, the NASCAR Xfinity Series comes to Sonoma Raceway to contest what has become a very fun and interesting race.
Meanwhile, the new sponsorship extends a relationship between Speedway Motorsports, Pit Boss and Save Mart Companies, the parent of FoodMaxx.
The bad news for the Xfinity Series field is that defending champion Van Gisbergen will be back. Meanwhile, young phenom Connor Zilisch won the first road course race of the season at Circuit of the Americas in March to prove he can win on a road course to go along with his most recent win at Pocono in June. He also won his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at Watkins Glen last year.
Dirt racing star and Hendrick Motorsports development driver Corey Day will be in the field wheeling the No. 17 machine for Hendrick. Day is on a development deal with Hendrick, so he’ll make select starts across the ARCA Menards Series, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series. The Sonoma race will be one of 10 starts in the No. 17 car. Day won the season-opening race with High Limit Racing at the Dirt Track and Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.
Day won’t come in without experience on the track. In April, he ran a TA2 car at Sonoma for some laps. He is also fresh off running the TA2 car at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.
Other regulars in the series to win races this season include defending series champion Justin Allgaier, who won at Las Vegas, Homestead-Miami, and Nashville. Austin Hill won at EchoPark in the spring and then at Martinsville. Jesse Love of Menlo Park won the season opener at Daytona, Brandon Jones won at Darlington, Sammy Smith won the return to Rockingham Speedway on Easter weekend, and series rookie Nick Sanchez won his first career race in the series in the June race at EchoPark.
A part-timer in the series, Aric Almirola, won at Phoenix in March. He has been making select starts with Joe Gibbs Racing in the series.
NASCAR Cup Series drivers with wins on Saturdays this season include Larson (Bristol and Texas), Byron (Charlotte) and Daniel Suarez (Mexico City). Van Gisbergen won on the streets of Chicago in the most recent race for the series.
New to the Xfinity Series this season is a new exclusive TV partner in The CW, which carries every race of the season. The Sonoma Xfinity Series race will air at 1:30 p.m. on The CW, with practice and qualifying on Friday, July 11, on The CW app. Stage breaks will take place at laps 20 and 45 in the 79-lap event.
Following that race, the Historic Trans-Am Series will run its race at 5 p.m. Once again, competing in the field of it will be NASCAR on Fox’s lead play-by-play announcer, Mike Joy.
The Historic Trans-Am series will qualify from 5:30 to 6 p.m. and race from 6:30 to 7 p.m. to end Saturday’s activities.
The main event on Friday, July 11, will be the ARCA Menards Series General Tire 200 — the first road-course race of the year for the series. As has been the case for the past few years, it will be a one-day show. The series will practice and qualify on Friday morning. There will be a practice session from 10:40 a.m. to noon, and then a qualifying session from 12:10 to 12:30 p.m.
Notable entries in the field will be Day in the Spire Motorsports No. 77 car and Jake Bollman in the Bill McAnally Racing No. 19 Napa car. It’s also very possible that some Xfinity Series or Cup Series drivers enter the event to get some more laps around the track.
Winners this year for the series are Trevor Huddleston, who claimed both races at Kevin Harvick’s Kern Raceway, Brent Crews (Phoenix), Tanner Reif (Tucson) and Bollman (Colorado National Speedway).
The race will air live at 3:30 p.m. on FloRacing, which requires a subscription. The race is 64 laps long, and a halfway break will occur following lap 32. It will also be simulcast on NASCAR’s Tubi channel.
