Drivers offer feedback on Sonoma repave at Goodyear test: 'A whole new ballgame'

Drivers offer feedback on Sonoma repave at Goodyear test: ‘A whole new ballgame’

NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr. is quite familiar with Sonoma Raceway, a track he’s been racing at in the premier series since 2006 and has won at four times in the last decade.

However, not only was the sun-scorched scenery not its typical brown and yellow — and instead a lush, vivacious green — for Goodyear tire testing Tuesday and Wednesday, but the racing surface also was completely foreign to him after a recent repave.

But, as his fellow tester Josh Berry noted, “it’s still Sonoma.”

The full 12-turn, 2.52-mile circuit underwent its first full repave in 23 years during the offseason, completed in February. The Cup Series will race June 9 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on Sonoma’s 1.99-mile configuration, using the “chute” that connects Turns 4 and 7 on the full layout.

MORE: Photos from Sonoma tire test | Buy Sonoma tickets

The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing driver and current points leader joined Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Berry to shake down multiple different Goodyear tire codes during the two-day data-gathering sessions. Truex sounded pleased with the results, noting an excess of speed and grip compared to what he’s used to.

“Kind of just figured out the technique to get around this place; the old pavement and the tire wear and all that was kind of part of the magic that we had found and what I feel comfortable with,” said Truex Jr., last year’s Sonoma winner. “So this is a whole new ballgame with their new pavement and essentially no tire falloff. We’re gonna have to approach it a little differently, but (it’s) still the same track and the same kind of lines and things work around here so far for me. So we learned a bunch today, and hopefully, you know, (Goodyear will) pick out a good tire and then (we can) get to work on my car faster.

“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. … This will be a new challenge. We were able to win on the carousel course, on the normal course and maybe now we can win on a repave, we’ll see.”

Bay Cities Paving & Grading and ABSL Construction completed the work in 61 days, culminating on Leap Day. It’s the second Speedway Motorsports track to get fresh asphalt in recent months, with Sonoma joining North Wilkesboro Speedway among the freshly repaved venues in the company portfolio. The work done included milling approximately 1.5 inches off the old track, filling cracks, sealing and adding a specially designed asphalt mixture similar to the compound of the original surface. Speedway Motorsports used a special mix that is expected to create a more “worn-in” surface more quickly, similar to what was recently done at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

In addition to the Toyota/Save Mart 350, the Sonoma race weekend will include the NASCAR Xfinity Series race on June 8 (8 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and the ARCA Menards Series West General Tire 200 race on Friday.

Chastain had a bit of a different takeaway regarding falloff, and was surprised by the amount to which it was happening.

“I saw some (tire) falloff; actually, more than I thought,” said Chastain, a former road-course winner himself. “Part of it was my sloppy driving on my part; just being a little too greedy. But we had definite grip loss in the car. And it showed in lap time. … I don’t remember how much they said it was, but yeah, I did have it. I had more than I expected for a repave because, I mean, I was worried about it, too. I was worried we’d just come out here and run and you just could run until you run out of fuel and slow down a very small amount, maybe two-tenths or something. But I know we had a lot more than that. And I could feel the grip going away in the tires.”

Despite the noted tire falloff, Chastain did mention the track is “super gripped up” and he was routinely putting down laps 2.5 seconds faster than the track record, “going faster throughout the day as we got rubber into the track” and moved away from clean asphalt. He also mentioned that shifting had changed quite a bit, which will be interesting to see play out when the full field is barreling around the track nestled in California Wine Country.

“We’re in different gears — we’re in second, where we used to be in first; we’re in fifth, where we used to be in fourth,” said Chastain, currently eighth in Cup Series standings. “Everything’s kind of up in the air. Everything’s happening fast. Just trying to stay off the brake pedal and trying to let the car roll, use the tire grip for what it is. But yes, with the package change, I know there’s less downforce in the car. At least, that’s what they tell me. I can’t really feel it, though. So I guess it’s a good job by Trackhouse to build it back in somewhere else.”

For a much different but still valuable perspective, the rookie Berry was able to take in the revamped Sonoma without having much experience at the track — or with road-course racing in general. Still, the short-track ace and Tennessee native offered plenty of feedback as much as it was a learning experience for him and his team.

“I think they did a really good job. Obviously, it’s a lot different than — I’ve only been here once before — but a lot different than what we had last year; a lot more grip,” said Berry, currently in his first year driving the No. 4 Ford, which won in 2017 at Sonoma with Kevin Harvick behind the wheel. “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. I don’t have a lot of background in road racing, so this has been a good opportunity for me to just learn and feel different things and obviously go through a lot of different tires.

“(Harvick gave me a lot of advice) last year. But obviously, with the repave, I think it’s going to be different, but at the same time, it’s still Sonoma; it’s always the same, you know, just feel and flow. So I think this week really, just more so wanted to come kind of experience this for myself and learn for myself and work on the team and try to see if we can get better. And I think we’ve done that so far.”

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