Rick Hendrick’s Road Course King Shrugs Aside Sonoma’s Tough Ask in One Sentence

Don’t you think Chase Elliott is due a win? With his last victory coming in Charlotte at Xfinity, it’s high time and the once-undisputed-road-course-king of NASCAR will look to reclaim his throne at Sonoma Raceway. Despite winning seven road course races in his career, Elliott hasn’t won at Wine Country yet. However, he is one of just four drivers to finish in the top-10 in both Sonoma races in the Next-Gen era.

Notably, Elliott’s last road-course victory was at Road America, back in 2021. However, with how he has been performing this year in the NASCAR Cup Series, Elliott will be the driver to beat at the Toyota Race Mart 350. Featuring 12 turns on a hilly course and 160 feet of total elevation change, the Sonoma Raceway can be notoriously tricky for inexperienced drivers. Not for Chase Elliott though, who has brushed aside Sonoma’s elevation challenges ahead of the race.

Will Chase Elliott be back to his vintage best?

Chase Elliott has momentum on his side, having finished 10 times in the top 7 and 5 times in the top 5 this season with an average finish of 9.87, a career-best across 15 races. Chase Elliott has shown great consistency in his #9 Chevy Camaro ZL1, despite lacking outright pace, and his team has performed well on the pit road. All evidence points towards Elliott being at his vintage best at Sonoma and being in the hunt to secure his second win of the season after putting up a great show in Texas earlier this season.

Now that NASCAR is headed into its 16th race of the regular season, Elliott, just like his teammates, has his own concerns. Sonoma Raceway is looking brand new. After spending $1 million and laying down 10,000 tons of paving material, the track is ready for the 2024 Cup Series race. While the fresh repave is mostly a hit, it does bring a few new challenges for the drivers.

In an Instagram post uploaded by Team Hendrick, while Bowman talked about the change in grips post-pavement, Chase Elliott talked about another important factor, “A lot of times when you have elevation, if you do it the right way, you want to use it to your advantage. If you are going uphill, that would mean the car will naturally slow down more than it would on a flat surface.” Valid concerns to talk about, and he had a potential remedy in mind.

“You might think about using less brakes and using gravity to help you. And also same for going downhill, you’re going to be going faster than you typically would, so just keeping those things in mind, I actually find them to be helpful rather than make things worse,” he added.

The one thing Chase Elliott has lacked this Cup series season is more than one podium finish. While Denny Hamlin has three wins and sits comfortably at 534 points, and Elliott’s teammate, Kyle Larson, has two wins with 513 points, Elliott currently sits at number 3 with 507 points.

The 28-year-old will try to get back in shape at Sonoma, only this time around, he will be competing in a next-gen car. Chase Elliott will also face stiffer competition, especially from RFK Racing driver Cam Waters. Just like Shane van Ginsbergen, who won the Chicago Street race in 2023, Supercars drivers tend to ace road races, and Waters will pose a formidable threat to Elliott.

However, a bigger suspense than the potential winner is the performance of the repaved Sonoma Raceway.

Other drivers also reacted to the Sonoma Raceway Repave

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It took 61 days, but Sonoma Raceway’s repave project was finally completed. The project began on December 28, 2023, with crews removing the old surface off the track. The track was ground down in two months, cracks were repaired, and brand-new, long-lasting asphalt was placed at the Sonoma Raceway. It’s the second Speedway Motorsports track to get fresh asphalt in recent months, with the other being North Wilkesboro Speedway.

Last year’s Sonoma winner, Martin Truex Jr said that he was pleased with the results of the repave, noting an excess of speed and grip compared to what he’s used to. He said, “I know the track is obviously new pavement, so it’s been getting better and better all day long. It was pretty dirty to start; pretty slick. And as we just ran laps and put rubber down, it feels pretty good. … When we come back, it’ll be a lot hotter, so it’s gonna be different. But always fun to get a little jump on the competition on a repave.”

Meanwhile, Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain mentioned that the track is “super gripped up,” with the 31-year-old routinely putting down laps that were 2.5 seconds faster than the track record. He said drivers were “going faster throughout the day as we got rubber into the track” and that gear shifting had changed quite a bit.

Stewart-Haas Racing rookie Josh Berry, without having much experience with the track or with road courses in general, had a different but equally valuable insight. He said, “I think the track is gonna continue to get better and get more grip; it’s gonna be a lot faster. It’s been fun to come here and actually test.”

Do you think Chase Elliott will reclaim the title of ‘Road Course King’ at Sonoma? Let us know in the comments!