NASCAR Drivers set to road race at Infineon

One of the many challenges on a road race is to stay on the track.
SONOMA, Calif. (AP) -- Stock cars were never meant to go road racing.
The 3,500-pound Winston Cup cars that look so sleek and fast on ovals lumber up the hills and lurch around the turns on Infineon Raceway's 1.949-mile, 11-turn circuit.
"It's difficult," said Ricky Rudd, who enters today's Dodge/Save Mart 350 as the defending champion and is considered one of the better road racers in NASCAR.
"I've got a pretty good record on the road courses," Rudd added. "But ... it would probably be a lot better if we did it a lot more often. It's been almost a year since we've been on a road course and it's very awkward the first time you roll out there, even though I've run these things for years."
Only one of two
Infineon Raceway is one of only two road course events on the 36-race Cup schedule -- the other is in August at Watkins Glen International in New York.
Nonetheless, quite a few of the Winston Cup drivers are able to adjust very well.
Among the drivers in today's 43-car lineup, Jeff Gordon has a record seven road course victories, including three at Infineon. Rusty Wallace and Rudd each have six wins, with two each at the Sonoma track, Watkins Glen and the now-defunct Riverside Raceway in Southern California.
Boris Said, one of four road racing specialists hired by Cup teams to race here this weekend, will start from the pole, just ahead of Robby Gordon, one of NASCAR's better road racers, and Ron Fellows, another of the "hired guns."
Wallace will start seventh, Jeff Gordon eighth and Rudd ninth in Sunday's 110-lap race.
Talking about Gordon
Based on his record in Sonoma, Jeff Gordon should probably be the favorite, even though the four-time series champion failed to finish better than 22nd in either road race last season.
In 10 career starts at Infineon, Jeff Gordon has six top-fives and seven top-10's and has led the most laps five times. His road racing expertise offers him a chance to get a leg up on the other drivers in the season's top five.
Series leader Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Bobby Labonte and Kurt Busch, the winner of last week's race in Michigan, have no wins and only five top-10's in a combined 18 races at Infineon. Kenseth and Earnhardt, second in the points, have no top-15's in a combined six races here.
"Matt's weakness, if you can call it that, is the superspeedways and the road courses," said Gordon, in third place, 223 points behind Kenseth and 38 behind Earnhardt. "Junior's seems to be the road courses.
"For us, we look at this as an opportunity. We know this is a race we can win. We've been strong here in the past and I believe we have made some gains since last year."
Wallace, whose last road race win was here in 1996, said, "Heck, we've been turning left all season so far and what we've done is left so much on the table. Maybe getting out there and turning right for a change will see us have the right stuff to get the job done.
"We've had a lot of success at [Infineon] through the years and it would be great to add to that. We're confident we'll be in the thick of things. We just need a little luck."
Many difficulties
For all those potential winners on Sunday there will be a simple challenge.
"The challenge for everybody is to go fast and stay on the racetrack," Rudd said. "It sounds kind of simple, but staying the track is easy to do if you're going slow.
"Going fast and staying on the racetrack is not always easy to do the entire race. That's probably the key, along with making sure you don't abuse your brakes so that you have them the entire race."
Rudd said it's the brakes that can mean the difference between winning and losing on a road course.
"Most of the passing is done under braking," he said. "And the brakes can allow you to make passes if you're trying to move through the field. You have to take care of the brakes for the whole race, making sure that you have them at the end when it's critical."