NorCal native Kyle Larson aims for historic repeat at Toyota SaveMart 350 in Sonoma
Now the Elk Grove native will attempt to reach another milestone and become the second driver within the last 25 years to repeat as champion at the 1.99 mile road course near the heart of wine country on Sunday.
Getting back-to-back wins there won't be easy. Neither was Larson's victory in 2024.
After a rough afternoon dropped him well back in the pack late in the race, Larson was in 23rd place on the final restart and maneuvered his way to the front to win despite leading only 19 laps.
It was Larson's fourth time celebrating in the winner's circle at his hometown track. He also won the Cup Series race at Infineon in 2021 and captured a victory there as part of the Winston West Series in 2014.
Larson's win at Infineon last season kept him in the thick of the points race, a spot he finds himself in again as the series comes to California.
With three wins this season Larson is in third place with 613 points, trailing leader William Byron (632) and Chase Elliott (619), each of whom has won once this season.
While Larson is chasing a spot in the record books, Byron is trying to keep what began as a serious run toward the season-long title from completely spinning out of control.
The 27-year-old — who finished 30th at the Toyota SaveMart 350 in 2024 — has been the most consistent driver on the circuit, garnering seven top-five finishes in 19 races including a repeat win at the Daytona 500 in February.
Things have gone in the wrong direction for Byron lately.
He's had a pair of DNFs and finished a disappointing 40th at last week's Chicago Street Race, where he had mechanical issues and made it through only one lap.
That created a logjam atop the Cup standings, with 43 points separating the top four drivers.
Larson and Byron are just two of the subplots that will be swirling in Sonoma.
Martin Truex Jr., the Toyota SaveMart 350 victor in 2023, is attempting to win his fifth race overall at the Sonoma track, something that only former Vallejoan Jeff Gordon has done in the Cup Series.
Ironically, Elliott has the most experience winning on road courses — his seven victories on them are tops among current drivers — yet hasn't been able to tame Sonoma. He's winless in eight races at the track, his best finish being runner-up to Larson in 2021.
On the other end of the spectrum is Shane van Gisbergen.
The New Zealand native is 27th in points, 324 points behind Byron. Yet in short fashion he's become one of the top road course drivers in the Cup Series who many view as a favorite to win this weekend.
Van Gisbergen, who won the Xfinity Series race at Infineon last year, was the winner when the Cup Series went to Mexico in June then pulled a sweep last weekend in Chicago when he won both the Xfinity and Cup races.
Van Gisbergen won the race in Mexico City by more than 16 seconds, the largest margin of victory on a road course in 45 years.
Another driver worth watching is Katherine Legge, a 44-year-old British racer who finished a career-best 19 th place in Chicago despite a few mishaps along the way.
In doing so, Legge became the first woman since Danica Patrick in 2017 to finish in the top 20 of a NASCAR Cup Series race.
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Once a driver has already locked into the playoffs, teams and manufacturers revealed they shift their best equipment (cars and engines) to other drivers who have not won a race yet. That means an early-season victory can actually result in a driver being penalized until all of his teammates win, since the goal for organizations is to qualify as many drivers into the playoff field as possible. In turn, that erodes weekly competition by making some of the midseason races feel like filler events and hurts NASCAR's ability to sell fans on the importance of every race. Given all of that conversation, it felt like the current one-race format was on life support by the end of the May meeting. On July 8, though, the committee was informed that discussions would be tabled for at least six weeks. 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Though it's unclear what NBC wants, going away from playoffs and eliminations is likely not on the list. Eliminations give something for TV to promote, and flashing the live points in the final laps of an elimination race is a powerful draw to retain viewers. Certainly, an argument can be made that NBC has too much power in this conversation, and that the broadcast partner shouldn't be dictating how a sport's championship is decided. Then again, NASCAR's four Cup Series TV partners are paying a combined $1.1 billion per year over the next seven years, and executives don't feel comfortable changing the very thing NBC signed up to televise without giving the network a chance to weigh in. So despite a process that has stretched more than six months and was filled with optimism through the early summer, the committee now finds itself in a similar position as everyone else who cares about NASCAR as much as its members do: Playing a game of wait-and-see to learn what TV executives believe are realistic changes that can be made, and even then, perhaps not until 2027. (Top illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Jeff Robinson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
