ExtenZe Racing Toyota/Save Mart 350 Racing Recap
Track: Infineon Raceway, 1.99-mile road course, Sonoma, California
Kevin Conway, No. 34 ExtenZe Ford Team
Starting Position: 41
Finishing Position: 28
Leading NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Rookie of the Year driver Kevin Conway not only survived his first road-course race in the Sprint Cup Series, he brought home a top-30, lead-lap finish. Overall, the ExtenZe Racing team had a good day at Infineon Raceway, starting 41st and finishing 28th, tying Conway’s season’s best finish. The rookie dodged on-track messes all afternoon, drove a clean race and learned a great deal in his first road-course outing.
Conway continues to lead the Raybestos Rookie standings in the Sprint Cup Series and heads to Loudon, New Hampshire for this upcoming weekend’s running of the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 on Sunday, June 27.
Comments from ExtenZe Racing Ford Team Driver Kevin Conway after the Sonoma race:
“Today was wild. It was a huge learning experience for me because it was my first time ever on a road course in anything, let alone a Sprint Cup car. It was a very physical race. It’s more like bumper cars where if you can’t pass them, you just knock them out of the way. We got used up a little bit. That yellow (rookie) stripe on the back of our ExtenZe Ford Fusion says, ‘Use me,’ I think, but I learned a lot.
“I lost a few spots there on the last lap when I got knocked off the track by the 31. We should have had a top 25, but we ended up 28th and the car is in relatively one piece. I learned a whole lot and kept all fours on the asphalt until the very last lap, and didn’t break any transmissions or rear-end gears, so we have a lot of momentum to head into Watkins Glen and a lot of experience gained.”