Kyle Petty predicts more aggression from drivers on road courses in the future

Make no mistake about it, Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway was WILD — a word usually not associated with the 1.99-mile-long road course.

But when you have seven cautions before the halfway point of the 110-lap race, eclipsing the amount of yellow flags in the previous two races at Sonoma combined, there’s simply no other way to describe it. Perhaps a newly paved racetrack had something to do with it, but whatever the case, it was clear drivers were being more aggressive than perhaps ever at Sonoma.

Kyle Petty doesn’t believe this was a one-off occurrence. Speaking in a NASCAR.com video, Petty said he believes this kind of racing will become the norm at road courses going forward, which he hopes will translate to short tracks in the future as well.

“This was aggression,” Petty said. “It was ‘I’ve got to get it, it’s all about me.’ And that’s what this car makes these guys do on these road courses. It makes them do things that normally they may bide their time. When their time came, they took it come heck or high water. And that’s why we saw so many cautions yesterday. I think this is what we’re going to continue to see on road courses with this car. Aggression, aggression, aggression. At the same time, I hope we start to see this same type of racing on the short tracks in the future.”

Kyle Larson outlasts field at Sonoma road course

Eventually, the field did settle down after two stages filled with cautions and non-stop excitement. In the end, it came down to whose pit road strategy would pay off the best, and the answer to that question turned out to be Kyle Larson. Having pitted on Lap 81, 13 laps after the leaders including Chris Buescher and Martin Truex Jr., Larson zoomed through the field on the final stage. He passed both Buescher and Truex in the final 10 laps to take the lead and the checkered flag — his third of the season.

“I didn’t know what we were doing as far as strategy,” Larson said after the race. “Was just out there banging laps away. I don’t know, we study all the strategy, but it’s like doing homework. I don’t really know what I’m looking at. Yeah, I was like, well, man, these guys are going to have to pit another time maybe. Then we said we had to go race and pass these guys. I got a bit nervous. I knew I’d be quick from the get go, but I thought once the tires would come up to temp it would even off too much.

“Thankful that we had enough grip. Thankful, too, that those guys got racing and Martin never got clear really to where I could get stuck in third and that really saved the race. I thought, too, once he got the lead, I’m like, man, I hope he doesn’t have somebody to judge off of here into 4 and he misses the apex, and sure enough, he did, and I had a big run.”