Infineon race to feature new rules

As if Infineon Raceway didn’t pose enough unique challenges for NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series drivers, NASCAR has tossed in another one.

The series is back here for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at the twisty Infineon road course and Sunday’s race will feature NASCAR’s newly implemented “double-file restarts.”

The change means race leaders will now line up two-by-two at the front of the pack to take the green flag after a caution period, just as they do at the start of a race.

In the past, the leaders had lined up single file on the outside row for restarts, and cars that were down one lap or more to those leaders lined up on the inside line. So at a track such as Infineon, where passing already was a tall order on the serpentine, 10-turn, 1.99-mile layout that has a narrow racing surface surrounded by dirt, the old format made it tough for the top cars to catch up to the lead after a restart.

Now, the leaders will be bunched together in front on restarts in what amounts to a shootout and everyone is bracing for the tangles bound to happen.

“There’s probably going to be guys going off in each direction and running into the back of you,” defending race winner Kyle Busch said Thursday. “I’m sure later in the race people aren’t going to be so patient, they’re going to want to get going.”

Qualifying to set the race’s 43-car field is today.

After four months of strictly turning left on oval tracks, NASCAR Cup drivers will have to maneuver their 3,400-pound stock cars through left and right turns at Infineon. They also face major changes in elevation at the track, which is nestled in the hills next to Napa Valley wine country.

The 110-lap race also means each driver has to make 1,100 turns and shift gears at least that many times, which is why some teams hire experienced road racers just for this event.

One is Patrick Carpentier, who is scheduled to drive the No. 55 Toyota normally driven by Michael Waltrip.

The race also requires only a few pit stops for fuel, which often prompts teams to gamble and pit early in hopes of keeping valuable track position under a later caution period, such as for a crash.

And the potential for wrecks jumped with the arrival of double-file restarts, some drivers said.

“It’s going to create some havoc,” said Jeff Gordon, a native of nearby Vallejo, and he should know. The four-time Cup champion has the most wins at Infineon with five for his team Hendrick Motorsports.

“We’re going to need to figure out how to get through the first set of corners on each double-file restart,” Gordon said.

“At the same time, we’re going to be battling even harder” for position “and sometimes that leads to more mistakes and more accidents,” he said.

Gordon arrived here second in this year’s Cup point standings behind Tony Stewart, a two-time Cup champion and two-time Infineon winner who now co-owns his own team, Stewart-Haas Racing.

“I like having the opportunity to do something twice a year that we don’t get a shot at doing very often,” Stewart said of the two road-course races on the 36-race Cup schedule. (The other is in Watkins Glen, N.Y., in August.)

“There’s just something about the shifting side of it that’s been really natural to me, and it’s fun,” he said.

Busch won last year’s race for Joe Gibbs Racing, his first victory on a road course. He also has three wins this season, tying him for the Cup series high with veteran Mark Martin, 50, who’s having a renaissance season in the No. 5 Hendrick Chevrolet.

Martin has the credentials to further burnish his season totals Sunday, because he holds the record for most top-10 finishes at Infineon with 13, including one win in 1997.

He, too, is bracing for the double-file restarts, especially because the field must climb a steep hill immediately after crossing the start-finish line.

Noting “the challenge to get up the hill side by side,” Martin said that “if the fans like spins and unexpected twists and turns in these things, I think they’re in for it.”

--

james.peltz@latimes.com