NASCAR Cup Series

Stewart expected to be in the mix in Toyota/Save Mart 350

Published Jun. 21, 2014 8:21 p.m. ET

Tom Jensen

Whenever the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series hits a road course, Tony Stewart's name always comes up and with good reason: The three-time series champion is one of the sport's elite road racers, which makes him a threat to win whenever the track turns right as well as left.

This weekend at Sonoma Raceway is no exception.

In 29 career Sprint Cup road course starts, Stewart has seven victories, 12 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes. And once again, he figures to be one of the drivers to beat in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the 1.99-mile Sonoma road course.

Stewart will roll off from the 21st starting position on Sunday.

Sunday's race likely will be chaos, especially in the closing laps, something Stewart is keenly aware of.

"This is one of those places where most of the time you shake your head when you're leaving here going, 'Thank goodness it's over,' " Stewart said. "The first half of the race is a blast because everybody is being patient and they're driving like they have sense. The closer to the end of the race, the more that goes away and the more guys just try to take advantage of every situation and every hole that's available."

The Sonoma road course, which typically gets a lot of dust and dirt blown on it, is very abrasive on tires, which makes managing tire wear one of the keys to victory here.

"This is a track where you have to budget your tires," Stewart said. "You can't just go run 100 percent every lap and make it run to the end. And that's what makes this place so fun is you can't just flog the tires and run a flying lap every lap and expect to do well. You have to budget your tires. It is a challenge."

And Stewart has always preferred racing that relies on the driver's skill more than just the sheer speed of the car.

"It's fun where you get in that scenario where there's times when you want to be that guy on older tires and up front so you don't have to worry about the chaos on the restarts," Stewart said. "And then there's time when you want to be that guy who has fresh tires that might restart 10th or 12th with ten or 15 lap laps to go and be able to charge your way up through there. I think the biggest thing that becomes the question mark, is what happens on the restarts and what happens behind you the whole time. That dictates whether having those fresh tires work or not."

Stewart said he expects a physical race on Sunday, with drivers getting into each other and causing accidents.

"I think more times than not it's accidental," Stewart said of the on-track contact that's now common at Sonoma. "I think the intention is to get in there and take a lane away and then try to gain a spot. A lot of times though, the intentional part is they get down there and they are over-committed or the door starts closing when they get there and can't get out of the scenario they're in. I think more times than not, especially late in the race, I think that's not intentional. But there are guys who will get their feelings hurt on Sunday and they'll take it out on somebody."