SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – NASCAR makes its return to Northern California and Wine Country this weekend at Sonoma Raceway.
The Toyota/SaveMart 350 – this year’s NASCAR Cup Series race in Wine Country – features one driver from the San Francisco Bay Area and another from the Sacramento area: AJ Allmendinger from Los Gatos and Kyle Larson from Elk Grove.
More than 40,000 people from 44 states and 11 countries will be visiting Sears Point to check out the weekend of racing. The ARCA Menards Series West took on the track Friday afternoon, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will race Saturday afternoon and the NASCAR Cup Series will race Sunday afternoon.
KCBS Radio’s Mike DeWald had an opportunity to speak with both of them, as well as previous Sonoma winner Daniel Suarez, on this week’s episode of KCBS Radio In Depth.
From the Bay Area to stock car trophy hunting
AJ Allmendinger is the driver for the number 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, but has a broad history racing everything from BMX bikes and IndyCar before moving over to NASCAR.
DeWald chatted with the driver as he prepared for this weekend’s race, spending the week in sim sessions.
DeWald: What exactly does that mean?
Allmendinger: Yeah, we basically sit in a giant video game and we drive around this place [Sonoma Raceway]. I mean, preparing for this weekend is no different than any other weekend. So with limited practice nowadays we show up to Sonoma, we got 25 minutes of practice and we go right into qualifying and that's really your prep time for the race. So the biggest tool that we got is going to like the Chevy sim. Chevy is gracious enough, gives us time every week or, most of the time, every week. And we go in there and prep. For drivers, I think the tracks are pretty much dead on. Um, but it's, it's not realistic in the sense sometimes it can feel real, but you show up and you hope all the work that you've done in the sim is correct. Some weeks it's dead on and other weeks you show up and you're way off. And so there's a lot that goes into it, but at the end of the day, it's really the biggest tool that we got besides from past races and things like that. But, even from Sonoma last year to this year, Goodyear has changed the compound of the tire a little bit. So, there's a lot that goes into that.
DeWald: I was going to say, I bet there's a lot of ways that the technology, whether it's dialing in the car or your own prep for a given track, I'm sure technology has changed a lot over the years in how you prepare for a given race weekend.
Allmendinger: It has, in really, let's see, I would say 2017, 2018 was when sim was kind of first utilized. Before that we were, as drivers, I think we were just iRacing and playing video games and you're trying to just do that. And now, we got so many things between sim, iRacing's fairly close as well. Just trying to learn racetracks and things like that. A lot of YouTube videos and in-car footage from previous years. That's, to me, what helps me the most is really going back and finding footage from last year and studying other drivers or even myself sometimes and trying to learn from that. But for team wise, we don't get to test much. The only time we ever get to test is if we get to be invited to a Goodyear tire test. Usually that entails just one car from each manufacturer, maybe two cars from each manufacturer showing up and going through Goodyear tire tests and other than that, like that's it. We don't test. So, long time ago, I'd say when I first started, we were testing every week, it seemed like. So yeah, it's changed a lot for sure.
DeWald: Now, in coming back to Sonoma, you're a veteran of this now, but do you feel a sense of coming home to be back in the Bay Area, just a couple hours down the road from home?
Allmendinger: Oh yeah, ticket requests for sure. So, for me, it's always special because a lot of my family and friends out on the West Coast – so, my parents live near me now here in North Carolina. So, a lot of my family and friends that I'm going to see this weekend, I basically see once a year or maybe twice a year or so. It's always special. I think it's difficult because you still have to focus on the job in hand and a lot of sponsor requests. Like this weekend is huge. We're bringing a new sponsor into the sport, Big Sipz. We're going to have a lot of guests from that side of it. So yeah, it's always a challenge, but it's always enjoyable as well. It's a fun weekend. It always means a little bit more showing up there and just hope that we can go out there and run well.
DeWald: In terms of the track itself what makes it unique? What are some of the challenging parts that are specific to Sonoma Raceway?
Allmendinger: Last year they repaved it and it changed a lot because Sonoma was always a racetrack that was fairly slick. The pavement was pretty old. You would have to really focus on longevity of the tires. You could be really fast early in a run and at the end of the run, the tires could be worn out and you could struggle a lot or vice versa really. So I think that really changed the racetrack last year. I mean, just for instance, a lot of the corners we were an extra gear in. So we were carrying that much more speed around the place that we were, say like turn one and two, we'd be in second gear. Well, we were third gear last year and like through the esses if we were third gear, we were fourth gear. So that changed the racetrack a good bit. And you know, the elevation changes I think are always the toughest part of the racetrack. I felt like last year we had okay speed. We were fairly decent. We finished sixth. But we definitely need to be a little bit better there and track position is always critical. The way you do strategy with the stages, I think that's tough sometimes because we're kind of on the edge of the playoffs. So you want to get points, but if you run a stage out more often than not on a road course, you're going to pit and have to restart mid-pack and it's tough to pass around Sonoma. So just trying to find what the right strategy is. Hopefully we're up front, so we have to make that decision instead of struggling and you're just trying to salvage it. But yeah, I mean, it's a fun racetrack, but it definitely changed a lot once they repaved it last year.
DeWald: Looking at your career, your upbringing as a driver, I was kind of laughing to myself thinking, if it has wheels, you've probably driven it. You've been on BMX, you've been open wheel, you've been NASCAR. What did that journey look like for you? It started very early on.
Allmendinger: It started really watching my dad race, just local dirt tracks around Northern California. And I was either watching my dad race or we were at a sprint car race in San Jose, in Baylands, Ascot, Calistoga, all those places. We were watching sprint car races somewhere. And, you know, my dad was really close friends with Brent Kaeding. I grew up racing with the Kaedings through quarter midgets. So I kind of always thought I was going to be maybe a sprint car guy and it just never went that way. I started off on BMX bikes. To this day, my favorite form of racing is supercross. I wanted to be a supercross rider. I just loved Jeff Stanton and Ricky Johnson and Jeremy McGrath. Like those were my idols. That's what I wanted to do, but my mom said there's no way after BMX that I was getting on a motorcycle. So we went four wheels and I went kind of through the open wheel ranks and went through IndyCar and then switched to NASCAR back in 2007 and, heck, tried to retire one time. I thought I was kind of done full time. I was working for NBC doing TV stuff and fortunately I call it my second life at Kaulig Racing back in 2019. Just planned on doing a couple of races with them, some road course stuff to help them out. And it's turned into this, our seventh year, and we won a lot of races together. So very lucky.
DeWald: Is it more challenging coming up in this area? Maybe not as many tracks as other parts of the country. What does it look like getting into racing from the Bay Area?
Allmendinger: Yeah, honestly, to me it was the opposite. I mean, I'll put it this way, living in North Carolina, I'd say the variety of racetracks, obviously going to different states is a lot easier, but in California, I mean, we had so many karting tracks around in, I'd say, three and a half hour kind of time zone. So there was a lot of racing going on and sprint car racing, on that side of it, there were a lot of racetracks too, that we go watch. If you go through the list of guys that, and – I mean, heck, a lot of them in NASCAR – but even the list of guys that I grew up racing go-karts with and how many of them made a professional driving career. And that's guys like Scott Speed and Joey Hand, Jonathan Bomarito on down the line, I mean, there's a lot of guys that I grew up with in region 11 in Northern California that became professional race car drivers. So, no, I think it's a great area for racing. It always has been. I remember being at Sonoma when I was four years old. I took a picture next to Harry Gant’s car, I thought that was the coolest car on the planet. I was a huge Skoal Bandit, just that green and white – that was my ultimate race car before Jeff Gordon came in and then it became Jeff Gordon. So, been very lucky to be around race cars and then my home track, really, in open wheel was Laguna Seca. I didn't get to run Sonoma much until I got to NASCAR. Laguna Seca was through Skip Barber and just all the open wheel racing I did was at Laguna Seca. There's a lot of racetracks in Northern California and I feel very lucky that I've got to grow up there and experience a lot of it.
DeWald: So, going from open wheel to NASCAR, driving all of these different types of cars, are there similarities in them?
Allmendinger: Well, I think nowadays with, as we're talking about sim and iRacing and just all that, it's a little bit easier. Back in 2006, when I kind of started trying to run some NASCAR races, I felt like I was just learning how to walk again. I remember being at Texas in my first Cup practice in ‘06 and I thought I was getting after it. And at that time I didn't have a lot of oval experience either. And Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. passed me and it was like a scene out of Talladega Nights. I was like, ‘Is that another car that just went around me? Like, are they going that fast?’ And they're like, ‘Yeah.’ The first couple of years just trying to stay in the sport, and it’s kind of crazy, even looking back is that I've been doing this on and off now for 18 years in NASCAR.
And if you'd have told 2007 AJ that, hey, by the way, in 2025, you're still going to be here. would have said, there's not a chance in hell because I was just trying to just learn how to drive the car, let alone go beat other guys. So I think it's easier now just because of all the different avenues to learn how to drive these cars, but it's still difficult. I still think that's why you don't see a lot of open wheel guys just jump the NASCAR and all of sudden they're in the sport and they're staying here. There hasn't been a lot of them that have made it and stayed.
‘Yung Money’ getting his start not far from California Gold Country
Kyle Larson has been called one of the best drivers in all of motorsports, one who can effortlessly jump into different cars and different racing styles and go fast.
He started racing sprint cars in Northern California before finding his way to stock cars in NASCAR.
Home for Larson is Elk Grove, about an 80 mile drive from Sonoma Raceway. He drives the number 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and is the defending winner of the event.
DeWald: Kyle, does this race hold a little more weight for you?
Larson: Yeah, absolutely. I don't get to go home necessarily to Elk Grove, but I'm close enough to it and have a lot of friends here and family that it makes it feel like home here. So I've spent a lot of time in the Napa Valley growing up, hanging out with the Abreu family in St. Helena. So yeah, I've been spending a lot of time with them again this week and just enjoying the beautiful country. Even if you weren't from here – or aren't from here – it's such a beautiful area and always look forward to coming back.
DeWald: And this track in particular, what makes it particularly unique, particularly challenging in, you know, in the context of the NASCAR season, one of the more unique tracks you'll come across?
Larson: Yeah, for me, I really enjoy it. I enjoy all the elevation change. You go really uphill throughout the first half of the track and then work your way back down. And it's really flowy, a really kind of rhythm-based track I feel like. So I don't know, I've always enjoyed it. I've always ran pretty well here. And then now getting a couple wins since joining Hendrick has been great, too. Yeah, always love going to places that you're good at and hopefully we're good again this weekend.
DeWald: Coming up from this area, you talk about a lot of the different tracks, whether it was here or Calistoga or all the different tracks around, any kind of memories as you're kind learning your craft coming up as a driver in this area?
Larson: Yeah, so everything I did growing up was on the dirt oval tracks like Calistoga. Calistoga didn't race too often, so we'd get there once or twice a year, but I raced a lot in Chico, Placerville, a little bit here in Petaluma, Watsonville, down to Central California, Tulare, Hanford as well as going to Oregon and Washington and stuff. But yeah, that was in sprint cars and go-karts I raced as well and that's kind of where you cut your teeth and learn a lot. So it's always great getting back here, not only seeing friends and family, but even race fans that have been with me from the very beginning prior to NASCAR. It's just great being out here and you look forward to hopefully having a good weekend.
DeWald: Now, whether it's being out on the dirt or out on the track or driving so many different types of cars, how different is it going from discipline to discipline, getting the feel for the car and the handling of it. Is it very different? Are there similarities?
Larson: Well, I think in the beginning, when I first started doing it, yeah, there was definitely, you know, lot of moments where I remember just like buckling in the car and having to like shut my eyes and picture me driving whatever car I was sitting in, whether it be wingspring car, non-wingspring car, midget, pavement stuff, and then we get into stock cars and stuff. So yeah, it all felt quite a bit different, but then, as you do it more, it just becomes all natural. And now, I don't really think about what car I'm getting in. In a way it turns into just like riding a bike a little bit. We don't do much of the road course style stuff. Thankfully, we just did it last week and we were in Mexico not long ago. So you kind of get into a rhythm of road course racing, but it's always tough. The sport's evolving all the time, drivers are getting better. Setups are changing, tires are changing, so it's never the same. So you're always trying to learn.
DeWald: Is it more common now to have drivers driving in a number of different series, different type of cars, things like that? Because I know it's always happened to some extent, but I feel like more so now that you say the skill of the drivers, people are branching out a lot.
Larson: Yeah, I would say in American auto racing, yeah, I would say there's more drivers trying to learn other disciplines. I think a lot of that has come from myself having success doing it, but outside of that, our schedules, our weekend schedules are so short now. We have 20-minute practice and then you go into qualifying, then you go race. That's a lot less time behind the wheel than we used to have. We used to have testing, not all the time, but you'd still have some testing, some test days, and then you'd have one 55-minute practice on Friday, roll over and qualify, and then Saturday you'd have two 55-minute – at least – 55-minute practices, and then the race. So you were getting a lot more time behind the wheel – a couple more hours at least – each weekend. So I think drivers and teams now look at that and like, okay, well how do we continue to get seat time in whatever kind of car it may be and see how you see them go and run the late model races, or sprint car races, micro races. So yeah, the sport has kind of changed over the course of last five years, but I think it's good for all of racing out here.
DeWald: Does it almost feel like you show up and drive without much of that lead time that it's just like, here we go?
Larson: Well, I mean, people have just kind of found other areas and other ways to get that seat time, whether it be real life behind the wheel of a totally different race car, like myself, like I do with sprint cars and stuff, or a lot of the drivers now really trust, put a lot of trust in the simulator, whatever manufacturer they race for. So yeah, that's just, I mean, you're just trying to find different ways, but I don't know, everybody's kind of got their own way of going about it.
DeWald: Now, speaking of showing up and driving, you had a particularly impressive feat of pulling off with the Indy 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same day. How did you pull that off?
Larson: Well, I didn't. I didn't get to pull it off. I crashed actually in both races, but no, it was still a fun feat to try and go chase after. There's only been one guy that's completed all the laps of both races: Tony Stewart. And then yeah, just unfortunately we had some weather delay issues, so I wouldn't have been able to finish the full distance of the Indy 500 probably, but I ultimately crashed anyway. And then yeah, I went to the 600 and crashed in that too. A day that did not go as planned, but still a great experience nonetheless.
DeWald: And just in general, some of the changes that have come to the sport, you know, you're visiting new cities, you're changing formats, a lot of different kind of exciting things being tried out with the sport. What does that evolution look like in the past few years?
Larson: Yeah, I would say in the last five or six years, the sport has gone through a massive transition or change with the schedule, with the car, the “next gen car” and kind of more or less being in a way like spec racing where all of our equipment's very, very similar now. And yeah, I think a lot of that's exciting, maybe confusing at times to fans and people that are trying to come in, but our sport, I felt like for a while, was just – it was so much the same every year that it became a little too predictable, too stale, especially with the schedule. So yeah, it's good now. I feel like [NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Racing Development and Strategy] Ben Kennedy with NASCAR has done a great job of building the schedule and building excitement into it and, yeah, you just never know what's gonna come each year. There's always some sort of new event. That's really fun.
DeWald: So we think of driving our own personal cars out on the highway and think, ‘Oh something doesn't seem right. Oh, take it to the shop or whatever.’ How in tune are you with your own car to be driving and just get that sense of, ‘Oh, this might be off, that might be off.’ How kind of dialed in are you on that side of things?
Larson: Well, yes, I mean, I feel like all of us have a decent and probably unique to themselves their own feel for what they're feeling in the car and stuff, but I'm not the type of guy that can tell my crew chief, ‘Hey, we need to change this or put this spring in or change the air pressure.’ I don't know anything like that. So I just try to relay my feedback of, ‘Hey, I'm loose here, tight here. There's a bump here that's upsetting my car,’ stuff like that. But yeah, they're really smart, the crew chief and engineers and stuff. And we have a lot of data actually to look at and they really don't even need to rely on my feedback a lot of the time. I'm fortunate to have a team that I work really well with and we kind of are all on the same page at all the times.
DeWald: So for all the cars you've been in, all the tracks you've been on, is there one you haven't done yet that you say, that's a goal, that's the one I wanna try?
Larson: I mean, I don't really find myself thinking about that a whole lot right now because I'm so busy doing all this full time as well as racing sprint cars and dirt track stuff, another 40 to 50 races a year. So I'm pretty much booked up where I can't – even if I wanted to try something, I couldn't do it. So all this would have to happen like when I'm done racing full time in NASCAR at least. And I don't know, I don't know what that would be. Life always changes. Obviously, I think 24 hours of Le Mans would be really cool. I just don't know if I'll have that opportunity ever when I'm done racing, but I've not followed that event a whole lot, but I've heard, through doing like the Indy 500 and whatnot, I've heard that event's potentially even bigger than – or the atmosphere is even bigger – than the Indy 500. So that makes me want to at least go there and check it out as a fan. But yeah, that's, that's one that comes to mind.
An international NASCAR star has his eye on the Bay Area
Daniel Suarez, a past NASCAR Xfinity Series champion and past NASCAR Cup Series winner at Sonoma, has been an international star. The Monterrey, Mexico, native has brought more of the Mexican community into NASCAR and seen the love of fans from the San Francisco Bay Area.
He drives the number 99 Trackhouse Chevrolet.
DeWald: Daniel, this track in particular was the site of your first career win – and maybe one of the most raucous victory celebrations this track has seen.
Suarez: Sonoma has always been a very special place to me – even before the win, really. We were always strong here before getting the first win. And, I enjoy coming here a lot. The food is amazing, the people are amazing. The Mexican community is huge and I feel super loved by the support. And I have always felt at home here. So I love coming here and I'm looking forward to compete one more time this weekend.
DeWald: You come to a place like Sonoma, do you actually get time to enjoy it?
Suarez: So sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. This time around actually we – actually most of the time, we do have a little bit of time, especially because we, [my wife] Julia [Piquet] and myself, we enjoy coming here. Yesterday, we were in Sausalito and it's a beautiful place. We had a great sushi and it's just an amazing place, you know, to come visit and even to live. Sometimes when you're in the back roads, you just see all these houses and super nice views and very good areas. I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, every time I come here, especially to Sausalito, I tell you, man, this is so beautiful. It must be so beautiful to live here.
DeWald: In terms of your own journey coming from Monterrey, Mexico, was NASCAR always the goal?
Suarez: Yeah, I mean, growing up, didn't even know I was going to be a professional racing driver. I was just driving just for fun. Growing up in Mexico, we don't have ovals for kids. So when you are a young kid, you only drive road courses in go-karts because that's all you have. You don't have any ovals. We do have ovals, but it's for bigger cars. So you have to be older to be able to drive those. And eventually, I was always a big fan of NASCAR. I would say always a bigger fan of NASCAR than Formula One for some reason. Once I learned about NASCAR Mexico, the national series in Mexico, I really wanted to be part of that. And I was fortunate enough to have some opportunities to be there in the NASCAR Mexico Series and eventually moved to the U.S. after that.
DeWald: Who were some of your idols, some of the guys you watched growing up?
Suarez: Yeah, in NASCAR, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson were on that list as well. Matt Kenseth was in the list as well, Kevin Harvick, like all these guys. And the funny part is that, most of these guys, I got to race against. So it's super special that I got to see most of the drivers on TV growing up. And then I was able to compete against – most of them, not all of them, but most of them. So it's been, it's been very special, you know, it's been very special too.
DeWald: Of course, NASCAR did a street race in Chicago this year. How about bringing that to San Francisco?
Suarez: I think it will be amazing. We all know that there are some rumors around about doing something in California, but it will be amazing. We'll see. I will really certainly be a supporter of that. I love street racing. Something new for me also. I never did it growing up. Growing up, my first time racing on the streets was a couple years ago in Chicago. So, I think it's amazing. It's something different. I always tell people that that's a great way to bring the racing to the fans instead of bringing the fans to the race tracks.
