More Racing Facts: Sonoma Raceway On-track activity is scheduled at the Raceway an average of 340 days per year. The Raceway road course features more than 160 feet of elevation change from its highest to lowest points. The highest point at Turn 3a reaches 174 feet, while the lowest point at Turn 10 is just 14 feet. The berms on the turns of the Raceway road course are painted blue and gold in honor of Track President Steve Pages attendance at nearby University of California, Berkeley. The property on which the raceway was built was a working farm called Sears Point Farm in the early 1900s. The Raceway is home to a bustling motor-sports industrial park of more than 65 year-round businesses, including car preparation and restoration, materials fabrication, vintage car storage and race teams, to name just a few. Drivers who complete the Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup race will make 1,100 turns around the road course. The race spans 110 laps. Mat Mladin (AMA), Doug Kalitta (NHRA, Top Fuel), John Force (NHRA, Funny Car) and Jeff Gordon (NASCAR) are the only riders/drivers to three-peat in a major racing series at the Raceway. The Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup event is one of the few on the Sprint Cup schedule measured in kilometers. This event is 110 laps, or 218.9 miles or 352.21 kilometers. Mark Martin holds the record for most laps completed by a NASCAR Sprint Cup driver at the Raceway. Dale Earnhardt won his first and only NASCAR road-course race at the Raceway in 1995. Don Prudhomme is the only driver to win at the Raceway in two different professional divisions, Funny Car in 1989 and Top Fuel in 1992. Facility Facts: Nearly 3,000 sheep call the Raceway home throughout the year. The sheep, provided by Rocky Mountain Wooly Weeders, provide natural land care, helping to maintain the facilitys grasses and fire lanes. Winners of most major events at the Raceway celebrate with a sip from the Champion’s Goblet in the Wine Country Winner’s Circle. The goblet was introduced in 2006, incorporating the raceway’s rich wine country heritage and allowing the winner to toast the fans. The Raceway owns 1,600 acres in the beautiful Sonoma Valley, 900 of which is used for daily racing activities. The raceway uses more than eight miles of temporary fencing during its annual NASCAR Sprint Cup event. More than nine and a half million cubic yards of dirt were moved on the Sonoma Raceway property during the $50-million Modernization Plan from 2000-2002. The hillside terrace seats at Turns 2-4, 7 and 8a-9 have used a total of 140,000 concrete blocks. At 18-inches long each, that is almost 40 miles of blocks. Approximately 121,176 gallons of concrete were used to create the 660-foot concrete launch pad on the renovated drag strip. The renovation of the drag strip required 9,600 hours of manpower. Ten tons of rebar cable was laid underneath the surface of the drag strip to reinforce the concrete launch pad.
Posted on: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 02:05:00 +0000
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