The 2006 Dodge Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway featured the NEXTEL Cup stars battling against a handful of road course ringers. The road race in Sonoma California is one where raw driver talent can overcome an underfunded team effort. Would a road race ace be able to score the big win at Infineon Raceway this year?
Qualifying

Kurt Busch posted the best time in Friday qualifying to take the pole. Roush Racing's Jamie McMurray started on the outside of the front row.


Kevin Harvick and Ryan Newman made up row number two. Boris Said lead all of the road race experts with his fifth place qualifying effort.

Drop The Green Flag

Outside pole sitter Jamie McMurray got off course and spun in turn two of the very first lap. Then Kenny Schrader spun later that same lap and took a hard hit from Sterling Marlin. This brought a red flag condition while crews cleaned up the mess. Fortunately everyone was ok.

They went back to green flag racing on lap four. Kurt Busch got away cleanly and took the early lead. Ryan Newman and Kevin Harvick were riding second and third. Robby Gordon, Boris Said and Mark Martin made up the next three spots. Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon were both climbing through the field early in the race and figured to be a factor before it was all over.

Storylines

Every year Infineon and Watkins Glen see road racing specialists invited in to try their hand against NASCAR's best. This week at Infineon Raceway the road racing ringers were lead by Boris Said who qualified in the top ten and stayed there all day.

Boris ended up ninth at the end of the race.

Ron Fellows, Scott Pruett and Tom Hubert also qualified for the race but weren't much of a factor.

Chasing The Checkers

It takes so long to complete one lap of racing here that pit strategy becomes upside down. This means that the teams calculate their pit strategy regardless of whether or not the yellow flag flies. They figure out how far they can go on one tank of fuel and then pit that far from the end.

On the last round of pit stops Jeff Gordon's team got him off of pit road first. He maintained almost two seconds over Ryan Newman. However, Terry Labonte stayed out and took a massive lead. Jeff Gordon was reeling him in for the lead but Terry was holding out for a top ten finish.

The final restart came with three laps to go. Jeff Gordon got away cleanly and lead it comfortably all the way to the checkers.

Top Ten

1. Jeff Gordon
2. Ryan Newman
3. Terry Labonte
4. Greg Biffle
5. Kurt Busch
6. Carl Edwards
7. Jeff Burton
8. Elliott Sadler
9. Boris Said
10. Jimmie Johnson

The Points

No change in the top three spots as Jimmie Johnson still maintains a comfortable lead over Matt Kenseth.

Jeff Gordon jumped from eleventh all the way up to eighth with his big win. This knocked rookie Denny Hamlin from the top ten.

The top ten in points are now:

1. Jimmie Johnson -0
2. Matt Kenseth -101
3. Kasey Kahne -313
4. Mark Martin -321
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. -329
6. Jeff Burton -400
7. Tony Stewart -422
8. Jeff Gordon -448
9. Greg Biffle -467
10. Kevin Harvick -489

Next Week

Next week the NEXTEL Cup stars kick off the traditional second half of the NASCAR season. They will make their first repeat visit of the season as the series returns to Daytona. The Pepsi 400 is a Saturday night restrictor plate race under the lights. Restrictor plate racing is close-quarters racing where the drivers are only inches away from the massive wreck called "The Big One" all night long.