SONOMA, Calif. — Stock-car racing has long since ceased being a Southern Thing, with the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series featuring strong representation from the West Coast.
And many of the drivers entered in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 have competed at Sonoma Raceway long before making it to NASCAR’s top division.
Take, for example, 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch, a Las Vegas native.
Busch, who earlier this year won the Daytona 500 in his Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, got one of his first big breaks right here in Northern California.
In 1998, when he was just 19 years old and a rookie in the NASCAR Featherlite Southwest Tour, Busch finished third in his first road race, the Yahoo!