The 350-kilometer (220 miles) Toyota/SaveMart 350 NASCAR race is a Sprint Cup Series event held each year at Infineon Raceway at Sears Point in Sonoma, California, and also one of only two road-course races run each season. Due to the track's unique layout – twelve turns over the 1.99 mile track – Infineon creates a discussion each time a NASCAR race comes, with people arguing both the pros and cons of having a road course format on the Sprint Cup schedule.
Also due to road-course layout, the Toyota/SaveMart 350 will also undoubtedly see its share of "road course ringers" – a NASCAR term used to describe drivers that drive in only the road course events on the NASCAR calendar every year.
Originally known as the Banquet 300, the race was held for the first time in 1989 as the replacement for the Budweiser 400 at the old Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California. Since then the Toyota/SaveMart 350 has undergone multiple name and length changes over the years.
Jeff Gordon is truly the undisputed king of this NASCAR road race, with five pole positions (1998-99, 2001, 2004-05) and five victories (1998-2000, 2004, 2006), the most of any driver. Notably, and seemingly no coincidence, Gordon is also the all-time NASCAR leader with a total of nine road-course victories throughout his career.
Kyle Busch earned his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series road-course win when he took the checkered flag at the 2008 Toyota/SaveMart 350; this also marked Toyota's first NASCAR victory ever at Infineon Raceway.
