Sunday morning at Sonoma Raceway for the Toyota/SaveMart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup race, and the hills are alive with the sound of 820 hp stock car engines. The garage is filled with cars revving engines, lucky fans with Hot Garage Passes, and bustling crew members everywhere. Those who want to see and be seen are filling in and the place is getting crowded. There is a crowd around the Pole sitting No.1 Cessna Chevrolet driven by Jamie McMurray, who races for Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. He also had the pole for last year’s race, which was won by Martin Truex Jr of Michael Waltrip Racing.
All 43 of the Cup cars have to go through Tech again before the race, but as of 8:30am PT, still no takers in the various Scrutineering check points.
Sunday’s schedule has just the one 110-lap race, running 218.9 mile race, starting at noon PT/3pm ET. It will air live on TNT TV, as well as PRN and SiriusXM Satellite Radio.
Part of the festivities include a six Patriot Jet aerial formation flyover, Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, Wine Country Silent Auction, and the usual hoopla for the Driver Introductions and driver parade around the track.
One happy camper Sunday morning was The King aka Richard Petty.
Former Major League Baseball player, Vida Blue, is the Grand Marshal. He played baseball for both the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants. He won the American League Cy Young Award, Most Valuable Player Award in 1971, is a six-time All-Star, and is the first of only four pitchers in major league history to start the All-Star Game for both the American League (1971) and the National League (1978).
KRISTEN POINDEXTER of Indianapolis is the 2014 Shell Science Teacher of the Year. Part of her award include a trip to the Sonoma race and her name on the Shell Pennzoil Ford racecar driven by Joey Logano. In the past 23 years, Shell has honored one outstanding classroom science teacher (K-12) who has had a positive impact on his or her students, school, and community through exemplary classroom science teaching.
