To Infineon and Beyond

Hello Nascar fans.  It has been a long week and its not over yet.  I am sitting here in the emergency room at Florida Hospital Orlando to get my knee looked at.  So I thought  I would take this break in the action to get some information to you about Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.   So without further ado, let’s get to it.

Infineon is located in Sonoma California and is nestled amongst the splendor of the wine country in that great state.   This year they will celebrate 41 years of racing excitement at Infineon.   When first opened as Sears Pointe Raceway back in 1969, they never imagined the vivid and colorful history that would follow.

Infineon is not only host to Nascar’s elite Sprint cup series but also host events for NHRA Powerade drag racing and Indy car series as well.   They host events at the track some 340 days out of each and every year.

The raceway changes elevation some by some 160 feet in various locations around the track.  The highest point is on turn 3a where the elevation is a 174 foot elevation to the lowest point of elevation at turn 10  at just a 14 foot elevation level.

The course itself runs a 2.52 mile course with a whopping 12 turns originally.  The revamping of the raceway saw the addition of a section of track that bypassed turns 5 and 6 and decreased the length of track to 1.95 miles in 1998  but drivers were unhappy with the setup of the racetrack and in 2001 during the total reconstruction of the track another turn, 4a was added and brought the track to its present day configuration of 1.99 miles.

The track has some interesting trivia and facts.  For instance the Raceway owns some 1600 acres of which a large portion, in fact 900 acres of it is used for daily racing activities.   During the annual Nascar Sprint cup event, they use an incredible 8 miles of temporary fencing.  More than 9 and a half million cubic yards of dirt were moved around on the property during the 50million dollar Modernization of the track back in 2001.   The seats that are at turns 2-4, 7, 8a, and 9 used 140,000 concrete blocks and each block 18 inches long which makes about 40 miles of blocks.

Well the qualifying is on right now.  Jamie  McMurray is running in 12 position right now.   Joey Logano is qualifying now.  In the top five times is Jeff Gordon running fifth quickest and right behind him, Mark Martin running 6th quickest.    This should prove to be an interesting race this weekend.  I hope its a good one.   Well have a good weekend.  I will see you back here after the race Nascar fans.    Take care.