The 10 Best Road-Course Drivers in NASCAR
Marcos Ambrose is back in Australia. Juan Pablo Montoya has made his triumphant return to the IndyCar Series.
With those two road-course aces now out of NASCAR, who is the best road warrior left behind? The answer might surprise you.
There are plenty of good ones left, now that drivers in the Sprint Cup Series have taken learning the craft of road racing more seriously than many of them used to in the old days. Jeff Gordon has won nine times combined at Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International, the two road courses currently on the Cup circuit. Tony Stewart has done so seven times.
No other active driver has more than three combined road-course wins. But that doesn't mean a bunch couldn't get it done this weekend at Sonoma, where there have been 10 different winners in the last 10 years. The second road-course test won't come until the series rolls into Watkins Glen in August, where it will be a wide-open field again.
Former crew chief Larry McReynolds wrote on FoxSports.com that he expects it to be entertaining:
"Like I always say every year at this time when we head to Sonoma, expect the first 60 or 70 laps on Sunday to be nice and calm. All the drivers will mind their manners and behave. It's when the spotters or crew chiefs get on the radio and in the driver's ear and say, 'There are only 10 or 15 laps to go' that things could get crazy. That's when you can expect these drivers to lose their minds.
"
Based not only on the number of career road-course victories but also recent performances at both Sonoma and WGI, plus other factors such as how badly their teams need a victory, how much time and effort they have put into testing at the road courses recently and which guys are least likely not to lose their minds when it comes to crunch time, here are the top 10 road-course drivers in NASCAR heading into this weekend.
10. Clint Bowyer
1 of 10
Bowyer won at Sonoma in 2012 for his lone career road-course win.
"To have this dirt boy from Kansas in Victory Lane on a road course is big, trust me," Bowyer told the Associated Press (h/t ESPN.com) then.
Of course, things were looking up for him, his No. 15 Toyota team and Michael Waltrip Racing at that time. Now he's mired in a 92-race winless streak, and this season he's led the grand total of only two laps.
Perhaps Sonoma is a place where he can turn it around or at least score a win to secure a place in the 2015 Chase for the Sprint Cup. In addition to his win, he's also finished fourth there three times and fifth while registering top-10 finishes in seven of his nine career starts.
He hasn't had as much success at Watkins Glen, where he has only one top-five finish and has led just one lap in nine starts.
9. Kevin Harvick
2 of 10
Folks don't usually think of Harvick when they think of great road racers.
His only road-course win, as a matter of fact, came way back in 2006 at WGI when he was driving the No. 29 Goodwrench Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. That was a long time ago, and he's never won at Sonoma.
But a closer look at his entire body of road work, plus the fact that Harvick and crew chief Rodney Childers have consistently put out one of the fastest cars in the field this year no matter where the series has raced, makes Harvick seem like a viable contender this weekend and perhaps again later in the summer at the Glen.
In 28 career combined road-course starts, Harvick owns 12 top-10 finishes. And even though he has yet to win at Sonoma, he's finished second once and third twice.
8. Jimmie Johnson
3 of 10
Johnson will be the first to tell anyone who asks that he wasn't always a good road-course racer.
But like many others, he has worked hard through the years to change that.
His lone win came at Sonoma in 2010 when Ambrose stalled out his own car while leading and Johnson took advantage. But in his last six visits to the 1.99-mile track with either 10 or 12 turns depending on how you're counting them (or who is counting them), Johnson has not finished worse than ninth on any occasion. That includes the one win, a fourth and a fifth.
Taken as a whole, in 26 combined career starts at the two road courses, he now has racked up eight top-five and 15 top-10 finishes. He can be counted on to run at least near the front at both places every time the Sprint Cup Series visits.
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7. Carl Edwards
4 of 10
Edwards kept knocking on the door to Victory Lane at Sonoma before finally breaking through last year after finishing third in two of the previous three races there.
Afterward, Edwards admitted to USA Today that it was "a pretty long climb" for him to hone his road-course skills, which require drivers to shift and brake more frequently while making right turns as well as left ones in heavy stock cars. He recounted how Roush Fenway Racing once recruited road-course ringer Boris Said to help Edwards when he first was beginning his Sprint Cup career.
Now, if the student hasn't become the teacher, he's at least getting closer. In a combined 20 career starts at the two road courses, Edwards has posted eight top-five and 12 top-10 finishes, with seven finishes of ninth or better in 10 starts at Watkins Glen, including a third, a fourth and two fifths, even though he has yet to win there.
6. Tony Stewart
5 of 10
How can Stewart only be No. 6 on this list when he owns seven career wins on the road courses?
Easy. While Sonoma or the Glen might ultimately prove to be just what Smoke needs to light a fire under his listless 2015 season, the fact is he hasn't won at either venue since 2009 at WGI. And he hasn't won at Sonoma since 2005 (although he has finished second twice since then, in 2009 and again in 2012).
More troublesome is the fact that Stewart has not been the same driver since suffering a badly broken leg in a non-NASCAR sprint car race at a dirt track in August 2013. He missed the last 15 races of that season because of the injuries, and in 48 starts since then he's managed just three top-five and eight top-10 finishes with zero wins.
Stewart's problem at the road courses lately has been that he too often seems to run out of patience and then feels justified in wrecking someone he thinks is holding him up (see: Brian Vickers in 2011).
"If they block, they are going to get dumped. It is real simple," Stewart told Jeff Gluck of SB Nation that day.
Unfortunately, guys who get dumped but stay in the race like to dump the guy who dumped them, as Vickers did later in that same race. That makes it difficult to race for a good finish and impossible to get to Victory Lane, as evidenced by Stewart's average finish of 23.25 over his last four road-course starts.
5. Martin Truex Jr.
6 of 10
Although it wasn't that long ago, it was a different time in Martin Truex Jr.'s career when he scored his lone road-course win at Sonoma in 2013.
He was still driving the No. 55 NAPA-sponsored Toyota when he won that day and was the toast of Napa Valley wine country. He had every reason to believe he would be employed at MWR for a long time to come, but that turned out not to be the case. Now, he's driving the No. 78 Chevrolet for Furniture Row Racing.
But here's the rub: Truex is in the midst of the best Cup season of his career, courtesy of his own resolve, a special chemistry he has developed with crew chief Cole Pearn and an ownership at Furniture Row that has never wavered in its belief of him as a driver.
Like Harvick, Truex has been fast everywhere he's run this season, and there is no reason to believe it will be any different this weekend or at Watkins Glen, where Truex actually tends to run better than at Sonoma (with four finishes of sixth or better in nine career starts at WGI, including a third in 2013 and a fourth in 2011).
4. Kurt Busch
7 of 10
Although the elder of the racing Busch brothers has claimed only one career road-course victory, he has finished fourth or better in three of the last four Sonoma races.
In addition to winning at Sonoma in 2011, he also finished third in 2012 and fourth in 2013. In the combined total of 28 career starts at the two road-course tracks, he has piled up eight top-five and 12 top-10 finishes.
Plus he's on a roll this season with new crew chief Tony Gibson. They're both old-school racers who seem to understand each other, and that's much more easily said than done whenever anyone is dealing with the enigma that often is Busch.
"He believes in engineering just like I do," Gibson told Bob Pockrass of ESPN recently, "but sometimes you've got to go with your gut, and you've got to go old-school, and I think that's why me and him...hit it off so well."
Kurt has never won at Watkins Glen, but he's come close, finishing third last year at the 2.45-mile, seven-turn course that has much faster stretches of straightaways than Sonoma. Busch also finished second at WGI in 2010.
3. Kyle Busch
8 of 10
The question heading into this weekend isn't so much about whether or not Kyle Busch, Kurt's younger brother, possesses the skill and experience to emerge triumphant at Sonoma.
Instead, it's more about whether or not Kyle is sufficiently recovered from serious leg and foot injuries suffered in the season-opening Xfinity Series race at Daytona to withstand the rigors of a road course, where so much more shifting and braking is required.
One thing is certain: Busch likes running on the road courses.
"The road courses are fun," Busch told Jared Turner of Fox Sports before last year's Sonoma race. "For me, I enjoy it. It's pretty cool to go out there and race the road courses. You get to turn right, turn left and everything, so it's fun. Sonoma is more technical just because there are more turns and it's a little bit slower [than Watkins Glen]. You have to concentrate on getting off the corner a little bit and have good forward bite."
Kyle's track record on the road courses speaks for itself. He's one of just three active drivers (Stewart and Jeff Gordon are the other two) who have won at both Sonoma and WGI; he won on the California course in 2008 and at the Glen in both 2008 and 2013.
2. Jeff Gordon
9 of 10
If you look at total career accomplishments among active drivers, there is no disputing that Gordon is king of the road.
His nine career road-course wins, in fact, are the most of any driver in NASCAR history. He has enjoyed stretches where he won three years in a row at both Sonoma (1998, '99 and 2000) and Watkins Glen (1997, '98 and '99).
He also enters this weekend as the sentimental favorite in what likely will be his last Sprint Cup race at Sonoma, as Gordon already has announced this is his last full-time season on the circuit and he isn't likely to race anywhere again even on a one-off basis.
NASCAR Hall of Famer and television analyst Darrell Waltrip wrote the following recently for FoxSports.com:
"This obviously is Jeff's final trip to Sonoma behind the wheel of the No. 24 car, and the native of nearby Vallejo (Calif.) has had more success at Sonoma than any other NASCAR driver. He holds almost every significant NASCAR track record there. He has the most wins, with five; most pole positions, also five; 14 top-five finishes, which is also a record; and the most laps led, at 440. ... We all know he desperately wants to win a race in his final year and make the Chase for a chance at his fifth and final NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, so you might want to put a little money on that No. 24 (this) weekend.
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There is no doubt Gordon could pull it off or possibly visit Victory Lane at WGI in August. But here are some other facts to consider: The last of his five career wins at Sonoma came in 2006, although he finished second there in each of the last two races; and the last of his four career victories at the Glen came in 2001 (and he's finished as high as ninth only once in the 13 races since, including eight finishes of 21st or worse).
Gordon has finished ninth or better, however, in each of the last nine Sonoma races, and this seems the perfect chance to perhaps turn around what has been a disappointing final season thus far and reserve his spot in the Chase. He may not quite rate as the favorite, but he's a close second.
1. A.J. Allmendinger
10 of 10
A.J. Allmendinger? Seriously?
You bet. With Ambrose and Montoya departed from the NASCAR scene, old masters Gordon and Stewart showing their ages and Kyle Busch still fighting to regain his old form, this is Allmendinger's year.
He won his only Cup race to date on the road course at Watkins Glen a year ago, outdueling Ambrose in a finish to remember as both were fighting hard for a win and the trip to the Chase that it meant. He also led a race-high 35 laps at Sonoma last year and was charging back toward the front after getting shuffled back when Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecked him with 25 laps remaining.
In other words, Allmendinger came close to winning both road-course races last year, and as a former open-wheel racer who is more familiar with all the braking and right-hand turns, he could actually pull it off this year.
Unless otherwise noted, all information was obtained firsthand.
Joe Menzer has written six books, including two about NASCAR, and now writes about it and other sports for Bleacher Report while also assisting in coverage of NASCAR for FoxSports.com as a Digital Content Producer. Follow him on Twitter @OneMenz.
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