Story By: JORDAN WOOD / WOOD BROTHERS RACING – STUART, VA – Harrison Burton and the No. 21 DEX Imaging team are set to take on the newly repaved Sonoma Raceway.
It’s the first repave of the entire track in 23 years, and that has teams like Burton and the DEX Imaging crew looking for higher speeds on the 10-turn, 1.99-mile layout.
“This will be an interesting week with Sonoma having been repaved,” said crew chief Jeremy Bullins. “It’s always been a hot, slick weekend, but now the track will have a lot of grip.
“Based on the testing that’s happened the lap times will be a lot faster.”
The weekend schedule has been crafted to allow teams and drivers extra time to adapt to the new surface.
“It will be nice to get a practice this weekend and be able to try some changes we don’t normally get to make and keep working on our race cars,” Bullins said. “The repave will also probably impact the race strategy as we will see a lot less fall off [of speeds during a run] than your typical Sonoma race.”
A 50-minute practice session is set for Friday at 2:05 p.m. local time (5:05 Eastern Time) with TV coverage on FOX Sports 1.
Qualifying is scheduled for Saturday at 3 p.m. (6 p.m. Eastern) with FOX Sports 2 carrying the TV coverage.
Sunday’s 110-lap, 218.9-mile race is expected to get the green flag just after 12:30 p.m. (3:30 Eastern) with TV coverage on FOX.
Stage breaks are planned for Laps 25 and 55.