Kyle Petty believes Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway was a special event for the NASCAR Cup Series.
The former wheelman turned NBC Sports analyst revealed his belief that Sonoma featured the most-aggressive racing he’s ever seen on a road course this past weekend. In the end, it was Kyle Larson who ended up on top, but it was a war of attrition to get the No. 5 to victory lane in California.
Petty explained why he believes drivers are more likely to be aggressive on road courses in the NextGen car, and how that played a role during Sunday’s race at Sonoma throughout the afternoon.
“Sonoma, or a road course, never disappoints,” Petty started, via his Hot Takes segment on YouTube. “We saw so much action yesterday. Maybe one of the best races at Sonoma that I’ve ever witnessed. I’m going to say that, because I think this was the most aggressive road course race I have ever witnessed in my entire life. I want to use an example. Tyler Reddick and Kyle Larson. They were battling for what would’ve been the lead as we cycled through. We saw Tyler Reddick stick it in there in a bad situation. Try to pass in a situation that maybe you shouldn’t have. Be a little impatient. Be a little aggressive. And he threw his day away, right there. That’s what you think from the outside. That’s what it looks like. But in all honesty, you’ve got to get what you can get, when you can get it.
“We saw it late in the race, when Ross Chastain spun the No. 8 car of Kyle Busch. We saw it midway through the race, for P15, P16, P17 position, with Austin Cindric, with those guys trying to go two-wide. We saw blocking. How about Josh Berry? All the way down to the inside, where Erik Jones sends him, and he wipes out eight or ten cars right there in that one corner. This was aggression. It was, ‘I’ve got to get it. It’s all about me,’ and that’s what this car makes these guys do on these road courses. It makes them do things that normally, they might bide their time. When their time came, they took it, come heck or high water, and that’s why we saw so many cautions yesterday.”
Alas, there’s been enough complaints to go around about the NextGen car, but perhaps the way it races on road courses is something we need to begin to appreciate. Sonoma provided an awesome race on Sunday, and we’ll see what Iowa can do this weekend in their first Cup Series date.
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