While most people like to kick back and relax for a nice refreshing glass of cabernet sauvignon, the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series have to earn it by conquering the treacherous Sonoma Raceway.
Unlike every other road course on the calendar, the undulating hills of Sears Point give this northern California circuit a number of twists and turns that are sure to test the mettle of best stock car drivers on Earth.
At this point in the season, two-thirds of the Cup Series field enter this weekend with bated breath as Sonoma offers them another opportunity to lock themselves into the postseason, but they’ll have to go through all of their competitors, most notably multi-time Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen.
Just eight drivers remain in the In-Season Bracket Challenge, and with this track’s challenging layout, it’s really anyone’s guess which drivers will advance to Dover with a chance to win a smooth $1 million.
With 110 laps on tap, let’s pop the cork and pour into what will surely be an amazing event at Sonoma!
Last Week in Chicago..
Shane van Gisbergen put on a clinic on Saturday in the Xfinity Series race, holding off a hard-charging Connor Zilisch to claim his third victory on the Chicago street course in just four attempts.
On Sunday, his closest competition fell out of the race before the end of stage 2, and after starting on pole, the Kiwi earned his second Cup Series victory of the season, defeating a trio of Toyotas piloted by Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, and Denny Hamlin, respectively.
This Week in NASCAR
The season-opening exhibition event The Cook Out Clash returns to the hallowed grounds of Bowman Gray Stadium for 2026 with a date set for February 1, two weeks before the 68th running of the Daytona 500.
The quarter-mile bullring — situated on the campus of Winston-Salem State University, a historically Black university — fought the challenge from other bidders, with the event being linked to Brazil as well as a number of American cities.
In the court drama that’s dominating off-track headlines, 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports look to lose their charters after a potential rehearing for the reversal of the preliminary injunction was denied by the US Appeals Court’s Fourth District.
For a more detailed look at the history of this ongoing courtroom saga where NASCAR is facing antitrust claims from two of its race teams, here is Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass’ piece of essential information:
In an interesting turn, the teams involved in the lawsuit intend to file another preliminary injunction to keep the charters now that they’ll inevitably face irreparable harm from racing as open teams as soon as Dover next week.
Jey and I reconvened for our most recent iteration of the Cup Series power rankings. Rather than our normal layout where we split the duties of ranking a top-10 we come up with together, we spent the week crafting our own top-10s to show you how often we have to compromise with one another to get this list out to readers.
It isn’t often in NASCAR that a simmering feud receives a sequel the very next week after the inciting incident, but that’s just what we got in Sonoma’s Xfinity Series race between teammates and front-row starters Shane van Gisbergen and Connor Zilisch.
Last week’s Chicago street race ended in shambles for Zilisch as the rookie got outmuscled by van Gisbergen on the final restart and found himself unable to track down the decorated Kiwi as SVG scooted to victory.
Zilisch made his presence felt early in the Napa Valley as he took the lead in the first five laps with a strong pass on the outside of turn 1. Eventually, the final stage came down to a chess match between two of the best road course racers in the entire sport.
The former Supercars champion swung his No. 9 Quad Lock Chevy around some of the most technical corners on the schedule within arm’s length of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona class winner’s WeatherTech Camaro, but ultimately, van Gisbergen struggled to put up a successful challenge.
Over the final few laps, SVG poked Zilisch in turn 4 and again through the Esses, but after stymieing a last-lap lunge in turn 7, Zilisch held on to claim his fourth career Xfinity Series win and his third of the season. For a more detailed recap of this race, check out our very own Joe Sell’s recap.
Also on Saturday, a certain Trackhouse Racing driver picked up yet another pole. No, it wasn’t Ross Chastain, but it was Sonoma Cup newcomer Shane van Gisbergen. Last year’s Xfinity race winner lines up on the front row alongside Chase Briscoe with a full lineup available here.
The Race
Today’s Toyota/Save Mart 350(k) will be broadcast on TNT starting at 3:30pm Eastern time with Adam Alexander, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Steve Letarte in the booth.
The 350-kilometer contest will wind around this nearly 2-mile, 11-turn road course for 110 laps, which are split into three stages ending at the following laps: 25-55-110.
As for a normal race at this track, it looks something like this: 5 cautions for 14 caution laps, 10 lead changes, and an average duration of 2 hours and 50 minutes.
When it comes down to the end of the race, the final caution waves around lap 85, which is also 26 laps to go. In addition, the only race to go into overtime in the last decade was the 2021 event, meaning the NextGen era hasn’t experienced an overtime period at Sonoma.
Writer’s Pick
I picked SVG last week, and to no one’s surprise, he came away with his second victory of 2025.
I suspect he does it again today to claim his third win of the season to tie him with the likes of Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Denny Hamlin.
While he’s never started a Cup race at the track, he performed a Goodyear tire test for Chevrolet last year that barred him from competing in the 2024 event, but it didn’t stop him from racing in the Xfinity Series where he logged an exciting victory over Austin Hill.
To further illustrate his dominance, he put his No. 88 Red Bull Chevy Camaro on pole for this event, locking down the top spot by a narrow margin with several minutes left before covering the field by a quarter-of-a-second with less than a minute left in the session.
As long as he and Stephen Doran don’t make any mistakes, I see no reason why he doesn’t win and really make conversations spark up about the merits of the current championship format.
(Top Photo Credit: Shane van Gisbergen’s Twitter account)
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