NASCAR drivers have to deal with Sonoma Raceway's ups and downs

SONOMA - Sonoma Raceway isn't like other stops on the NASCAR circuit. Just ask the jackrabbit.

Actually, you can't. The rabbit ran across the track Friday afternoon during the final practice session for the Toyota/Save Mart 350, tried to double back and, sadly, became a mess on Kyle Busch's front bumper.

“He stopped and turned and we looked eye to eye, and it was all over,” Busch, the race's reigning champion, lamented to Fox Sports 1.

But it isn't just the raceway's bucolic Carneros setting and ample wildlife that sets it apart from the likes of Darlington and Talladega. As one of only two road courses on the Sprint Cup Series schedule, Sonoma presents challenges that can throw even the top stock-car drivers off-balance. The most obvious: right turns.

Unlike the hypnotic circling of a superspeedway race, driving here is a story with twists and turns.

But there's another difference that doesn't receive as much attention, and isn't as immediately obvious. Except for banking curves, the oval courses are flat. Sonoma Raceway is not. The road course's elongated shape isn't simply an out-and-back. It's also an up-and-down.

The starting line here is practically a swamp, only about 20 feet above sea level. As the route progresses northwest, it climbs steeply to 50 feet at the outer curve of Turn 1, and to 120 feet a short distance later at the start of Turn 2.

“The first time I raced here, I got past Turn 1 and I looked up the hill, and it was like a caricature of what I thought the track was,” Carl Edwards said.

The road continues to ascend, to 153 feet coming out of what's known as Turn 3A.

As cars box off the upper end of the course with two right turns, the elevation drops to 106 feet heading into Turn 7A, and falls all the way to 14 feet by the time they get to Turn 10; hairpin Turn 11 returns the pack to start/finish.

Six-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson, who won here in 2010, calls it “the undulation of the track,” and it presents two major challenges. Start with impaired sightlines.

“Three and 3A, especially being right out of 3A, if you get too much curve or not enough, and end up four or five inches wide on exit, you can't see where the road is until you're in the dirt, and then it's way too late, you're in big trouble,” Johnson added. “I'd say coming out of 8 is a very similar sensation like that, where you're sliding up over the road. You can see where the track turns for Turn 9 way out in front of you, but where the edge is and where the dirt is, is pretty blind and it takes a couple laps to get a feel for it.”

Denny Hamlin cited the same two corners, though he was more succinct. “The biggest challenge is seeing over the horizon in some of the corners, mostly in Turn 8 and Turn 3,” Hamlin said. “You are so elevated you have to kind of peek over the horizon to see the car in front of you.”

The other factors that get thrown out of whack in Sonoma are accelerating and braking. They're among the fundamental skills of motorsports.

But racing on oval after oval, drivers become accustomed to how much foot they need to apply to get up to, or down to, a certain speed. It all changes on a slope.

Even a fearsome machine like a NASCAR ride needs a little extra boost when going uphill.

“As you're coming around Turn 1, that long, sweeping left-hander, you really don't have to use the brakes much, and that's different from the majority of tracks we run at,” Johnson said. “The car can slide into the track - into the banking, into the hill - and it drags speed out and puts grip in the car, so that's a totally different sensation and technique.”

Likewise, braking into turns can be tricky when aimed downhill. It's an especially important complexity here, where the main passing zones are in the corners.

“You don't realize how much grip you lose when you go over the crest of a hill,” Edwards said. “The car almost weighs nothing.”

Joey Logano agrees, pointing to Turn 3A as a particularly fraught curve.

“You crest that corner, you can't see anything before you get to the top of it, and then the car gets really, really light,” Logano said. “The car feels like it wants to jump. And you're trying to turn and put the tires down. It's a big challenge over there.”

Watkins Glen, NASCAR's other road course, has all of those left-right turns. But it's not nearly as technical as Sonoma, which some veterans compare to a classic short track.

“Watkins Glen is very different,” Edwards said. “It's much faster, a lot more straight-line braking. This is a very flowing track, you're always struggling for grip. This is fun. This is really fun.”

Longtime crew chief Larry McReynolds, now a Fox racing analyst, notes that Sonoma Raceway used to be even more of a rollercoaster. In 1998, the short straightaway called “the Chute” replaced a backtracking loop known as “the Carousel” at the northwest end of the track. IndyCar drivers still use the Carousel, which goes from 140 feet of elevation at Turn 4, down to 33 feet out of Turn 6 and back up to 108 at Turn 7.

“You were turning left and going downhill the whole time, and it was pretty much a blind corner the entire part of the carousel,” McReynolds said.

Sonoma Raceway's elevation changes are another wild card, part of the reason we've seen seven different winners here in the past seven years, and 10 in the past 11 years. Some of the racing teams no doubt see it as an annoyance. For the best road-course drivers, the “undulation” is nothing but fun.

“I like the element that that brings, and how you drive the car different anticipating the load to gain or lose as you see hills,” Logano said. “Or in this case, mountains.”

Practice results

Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted the fastest practice lap Friday, making a circuit in 75.175 seconds in the faster late-afternoon session; Earnhardt's run translated to an average speed of 95.298 miles per hour.

Next fastest were Casey Mears (75.209 seconds), Hamlin (75.218) and Edwards (75.286). Fastest in the early afternoon session was young Kyle Larson (75.299).

Among the big names who struggled to find their speed Friday were Johnson, whose fastest pass was 75.522; Clint Bowyer (75.872) and current points leader Kevin Harvick (75.795).