NASCAR Monday Mash-Up: Le Mans success and Sonoma surprises
What a weekend for NASCAR! It wasn’t just the action in Wine Country (California) but also in an actual country known for its wine (France). Between the Garage 56 Camaro in Le Mans and Martin Truex Jr.’s big win at Sonoma, stock car racing went international.
When NASCAR announced they wanted to put a Next Gen car into the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there were doubters. American stock cars don’t just show up to Le Mans, this isn’t the mid-20th century anymore.
However, the entire Hendrick Motorsports and NASCAR team put together a mean-looking Camaro that also happened to be really fast. So fast, the race officials had to change the rules about where the car would start in the race.
Jimmie Johnson was enamored with his Le Mans experience. Mike Rockenfeller and Jenson Button were excellent behind the wheel as well. If it wasn’t for a drive line failure that put the car in the garage for an hour late in the race, this car would have beaten the entire GTE class.
Now watch this Camaro pass a Ferrari at Le Mans.
Back in America, it was another week of NASCAR action. This time at Sonoma Raceway.
Xfinity Series debuts at Sonoma
With the NASCAR Xfinity Series making its debut at Sonoma, we had an interesting DoorDash 250. Lots of Cup Series talent was mixing it up in hopes of picking up extra laps and perhaps gaining an advantage for the Toyota Save Mart 350.
Kyle Larson won the pole award easily in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy. It felt like he would just run away with the race completely, but Aric Almirola and others had something to say about that.
This mistake in Turn 11 likely cost Larson the win and moved him down to P3 by the finish. Almirola surprisingly took the inaugural win in the Xfinity Series at Sonoma.
The Cup Series action was interesting through qualifying. There might be an issue for the non-Toyota teams on road courses.
NASCAR at Sonoma produces little drama, Truex dominates
Qualifying for the NASCAR Cup Series revealed something about the field. Toyota is really strong on the road courses and especially in qualifying. Five Toyotas started in the top-10. That included an all-Toyota front row with Denny Hamlin on the pole and Tyler Reddick started P2.
Hamlin went on to win Stage 1. However, the second stage changed things. A loose tire on pit road brought out a caution. That also switched the running order as different teams were on various tire strategies. It also opened the door for his JGR teammate Martin Truex Jr.
Some fans felt the race was boring, but further back in the pack, we had some drama. Josh Bilicki pulled out the “hack” card on Ty Dillon after this late spin.
There was also a little moment with Ryan Blaney and Michael McDowell. McDowell got into Blaney and sent a struggling No. 12 team from the top-10 all the way to a P31 finish.
Ryan was not very happy with it after the race, but didn’t want to “start controversy.”
Otherwise, it was just the Martin Truex Jr. show as he led for 51 of 110 laps and took the checkered flag. A late Hamlin wreck with 17 laps to go put a little bit of pressure on Truex, but it wasn’t enough to shake him on a dominant day.
In other news around Sonoma, there was a giant shopping cart fit with a real engine that drove around the track during driver intros. Shaq, AKA DJ Diesel, didn’t make it in time for the pre-race concert he was supposed to play. However, the NBA champion and DJ extraordinaire made it for the post-race celebrations.
While Truex Jr. had a huge weekend, a NASCAR bettor was the biggest winner of the week. $25 turned into more than $86,000??? That’s more than a nice payday. Offweek is finally here and then we are back with NASCAR action at Nashville.