Charity event lets participants break in the new asphalt on the
newly-repaved road course.
After 61 days of work, crews from Bay Cities Paving & Grading and ABSL Construction finally removed their hard hats to celebrate the completion of the Sonoma Raceway road course repave project. In honor of the first complete repave in 23 years, the track is offering to be one of the first to drive the newly repaved road course, and support local kids and families in need at the same time.
The transformation started to take shape after the Christmas holiday with crews milling the old surface of the track as the calendar flipped to a new year. Over the course of two months, the track was ground down, cracks were repaired and brand-new, long-lasting asphalt was put down to enhance the racing surface at Sonoma Raceway. With paving complete, the 2.52-mile road course is once again ready to host some of the fastest cars and most talented racers in the world.
To start, the Drive For Charity – First Laps event March 11 from 9am – 4pm will give participants the opportunity to take three laps around the track in their own car and experience the smoothest surface the track has seen in decades. All proceeds benefit Speedway Children’s Charities Sonoma, the charitable arm of Sonoma Raceway, which supports local children and families in critical need.
Next, vintage car racing will take to the new track March 15-17, and finally, tire testing is planned later in the month to prepare for the annual NASCAR weekend in June.
Tickets for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 weekend June 7-9 are available now at SonomaRaceway.com. Drive For Charity – First Laps participants can register at speedwaycharities.org. Participants must be 18+ with a valid driver license. Each Drive For Charity entry includes three lead-follow laps around the Sonoma Raceway road course in driver’s own vehicle, photo of car on track and small groups for a higher speed experience.
Sonoma Raceway is a bustling 2.52-mile, 12-turn road course, quarter-mile drag strip and championship karting track on 1,600 acres in Sonoma County, California that boasts over 560 event days per year. Built in 1968 the road course is carved into the rolling hills of wine country with 160 ft of total elevation change, and is host to one of the few NASCAR Cup Series races that are run on road courses. NHRA, Ferrari Challenge and GT World Challenge America all make stops at Sonoma Raceway, and AMG Driving Academy calls Sonoma home during the year. Turn 11, the 19,000 sq ft luxury hospitality complex is an entertainment venue without equal. A complete and versatile motorsports complex, the Speedway Motorsports property is also home to a high-performance automotive industrial park with approximately 70 tenants in 250,000 sq ft of rented space.
Source: Sonoma Raceway
