Sunday morning at Sonoma is bright, sunny and chilly, but not breezy. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage is busy with all the teams setting up their Pit Lane ‘compounds,’ running loud engine tests on their cars, and the VIPs and other Sunday guests are starting to arrive. The Over-The-Wall Crews have flown in overnight, to work with their respective teams in Sunday’s 24th Annual Toyota/Save Mart 350 Race. TV and broadcast teams are going over their story lies, checking their marks, and arranging interviews.
Between the engines, very loud garage music, and the constantly-running diesel haulers, it’s more than just foam earplugs. Time for airport-level protective headsets. And there was the auction going on in Winner’s Circle, raising money for the Speedway Children’s Charities. Among the sports-related items are
memorabilia from NASCAR teams and local San Francisco Bay Area teams and figures.
The Grand Marshal for the NASCAR race is TONY LA RUSSA. After retiring as a Major League Baseball General Manager (including the Oakland Athletics) he founded ARF (Animal Rescue Foundation), for which he holds fundraising events. An upcoming event will be in Las Vegas featuring Legends, mostly sports figures. NASCAR driver DANICA PATRICK has already volunteered to be a spokesperson for ARF.
One very interesting VIP was Officer R.Fey from the Paradise Valley Police Department and his K-9 dog, VADER. They were with the team of PAUL MENARD/No.27 Chevrolet, one of the RICHARD CHILDRESS stable. Seems that the dog was purchased for Fey by Mr. MENARD, father of his driver son, Paul, as a thank you to Fey. Seems Paul was flying into Tahoe for the December holidays, airport was snowbund and redirected to Sacramento. Fey gave Paul a lift to his destination.
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