Tony Stewart ready for final season to come to an end

Chevrolets scored a 1-2 finish at Pocono, with Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kurt Busch scoring his first win of the season.

Race day itself, Sunday, will kick off with pre-race entertainment beginning at 8:30 a.m. Music concerts, aerial acrobatics and more comprise the pre-race show, powered by Friedman’s Home Improvement. He is attempting to take a similar route to the championship that Busch did a year ago, as Stewart missed the first eight races of this season after a pre-season ATV accident that broke his back. His average finish at Sonoma is 11.9, while his driver rating is 109.3.

Entering the third year of the new “win to get in” format of the Chase, the road courses at Sonoma and Watkins Glen International continue to loom as game changers simply because they are so different. He is 35th in points, 45 out of 30th.

NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin and San Francisco 49ers running back Carlos Hyde pose for a portrait as FedEx and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation showcase the #11 FedEx Cares paint scheme at the FedEx Racing Sonoma media event at Fort Point in San Francisco. He now has six top-ten finishes, and returns to the top ten in the points standings for the first time in two races. And with JTG Daugherty a single-car organization without the same level of resources as the sport’s top organizations – it has 50 employees compared to hundreds on other teams – road courses act as a bit of an equalizer where a driver’s talent can overcome a team’s shortcomings. This will be the rookie driver’s debut at the 12-turn Sonoma road course, so all the prep and experience he can get beforehand will greatly help.

Brad Keselowski already has two victories and Joey Logano, who won a Cup-high six races last season, finally won last week at MI.

“Because I’m ready to go run stuff that makes me happy and driving a Sprint Cup vehicle does not make me happy right now”, he said.

AJ Allmendinger is on the list of favorites to win Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

But when he starts to feel sad about the close of a career, he’s reminded that there is more to life than just NASCAR.

Surprisingly, Allmendinger has never had a top-5 finish at Sonoma, his best a seventh in 2009. The fastest driver in the final round will earn the pole position for the race. He has four Top 10 finishes since his victory, including a Top 10 in the last three races at Hendrick.

NASCAR’S most recent Sprint Cup Champion, Kyle Busch had a remarkable recovery from the horrifying crash that happened in the Xfinity Series opener in Daytona. Custer is winless in 2016 and is 14 points below the Chase cutline, but a victory this weekend would send him to the playoffs….

“I have a long history at Sonoma and a lot of memories there, and to be inducted into the Wall of Fame is a real honor”, said Stewart, who made his first Sonoma start in 1999.

Elliott rookie season is on par with NASCAR lore.

Although Kyle has more wins than his brother, his two wins are his only top-fives there in 11 starts. A handful of aces remain at the top of the grid, but the era of the road-course ringer has come and gone.

Kyle Larson appears to be due for his first career victory. The driver of the No. 42 Chip Ganassi racing Chevrolet topped the speed chart at 95.141 miles per hour. Sprinkled between those results were a win in the third segment of the Sprint Showdown exhibition and a strong run in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star race.

– A total of 46 changeable message signs will be distributed along highways up to a 15-mile radius around the facility directing non-race traffic away from Highways 37 and 121.

(Allmendinger) “Sonoma is like a short track”.

Historically, it would be hard to make a case for Dale Jr.as a road-course specialist, but he’s come around over the past several seasons.