NASCAR.COM - By the Numbers: Infineon

Wine country has been sweet to series champions Stewart, Gordon

By Josh Pate, NASCAR.COM
June 23, 2006
06:14 PM EDT (22:14 GMT)

With his two crashes at Lowe's Motor Speedway, a shortened day at Dover and last weekend's wreck at Michigan, the bad has outweighed the good (third-place at Pocono) for Tony Stewart.

Bad shoulder or not, he's looking forward to making a few right-hand turns at Infineon Raceway for Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350 (3 p.m. ET, FOX). His average start at the curvy track is 6.3 (second-best), and his average finish is 8.0 (best). He's got seven consecutive top-15 finishes at Infineon, the longest current streak.

On all road courses, Stewart has the best average finish (7.714) among full-time drivers. His five road-course victories, which rank second on the active drivers list just behind Jeff Gordon's eight, is good enough to give him a .3571 winning percentage -- sixth all-time.

Statistics aside, Stewart's win at Infineon last year ignited the hottest summer in quite some time, as he earned all five of his victories in a seven-race stretch.

After dropping two positions to sixth in the standings last weekend, he'd take another long, hot summer.

What you didn't know

14 -- Number of laps Tony Stewart ran that ranked among the 25 fastest last year at Infineon. His fastest was Lap 46 at 93.205 mph, which ranked fourth on the list.

Driver Rating: Dodge/Save Mart 350

142.7 -- Tony Stewart, No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet. Stewart's victory last year at Infineon was his second consecutive road-course win and third in four road-course races.

NASCAR's driver rating combines the following categories: wins, finishes, top-15s, average lead-lap running position, average speed under green, fastest lap, led most laps and lead-lap finish. Statistics based on current and past year at track. Maximum rating: 150 points.

Numerology

Sunday will be the 18th race at Infineon Raceway, where there have been 10 winners since the track began hosting NASCAR events. Rick Hendrick leads all car owners with four victories at Infineon, all thanks to Jeff Gordon. But the last four races have been won by four different car owners: Joe Gibbs, Hendrick, Richard Childress and Robert Yates.

0 -- Victories among road-course ringers Boris Said, Scott Pruett and Ron Fellows in a combined 32 starts, although they do have 12 top-10 finishes. All will try to qualify for Sunday's race.

0 -- Times a Dodge has won at Infineon Raceway. Chevrolet has eight victories, and Ford has six.

1 -- Driver who has recorded top-five finishes in half of his Infineon starts. Jeff Gordon has eight top-fives in 13 races.

1 -- Driver who has been running at the finish of all 17 Infineon races: Michael Waltrip.

1 -- Driver who has competed in every race this season but has not led a lap: Ken Schrader.

2.800 -- Average running position of Tony Stewart in last year's Dodge/Save Mart 350 at Infineon. Stewart led a race-high 39 of the 110 laps.

3 -- Lap that Dale Earnhardt Jr. spun and crashed in Turn 1. Junior returned to run 88 laps and finish 41st.

4 -- Full-time drivers who have won at Infineon Raceway: Jeff Gordon (four), Tony Stewart (two), Robby Gordon and Mark Martin.

4 -- Times Mark Martin has failed to record a top-10 finish at Infineon in his 17 starts. Martin has more top-10 finishes on road courses (32) than any other driver.

4.294 -- Average starting position of race winners at Infineon. Five races have been won from the pole, and the lowest starting position by a race winner is 13th (Davey Allison, 1991). The past 14 races have been won from a top-10 starting position.

5 -- Poles for Jeff Gordon at Infineon in the last eight races. He is the only full-time driver with multiple pole positions at the track. Three times Gordon has won the pole and gone on to win the race (1998, 1999, 2004).

6 -- Drivers who are entered in Sunday's Dodge/Save Mart 350 and have run every race at Infineon: Dale Jarrett, Terry Labonte, Sterling Marlin, Mark Martin, Ken Schrader and Michael Waltrip.

7 -- Second-place finishes for Mark Martin and Terry Labonte on road courses, tied for the most runner-ups all-time.

8.482 -- Average running position of Scott Pruett last year at Infineon, third best. A slow pit stop on Lap 71 started a downfall that left Pruett with a 31st-place finish in a third car for Chip Ganassi.

9 -- Fastest turn at Infineon, the sloping end to the S-turns that head into the paperclip Turn 11. Jimmie Johnson averaged 112.238 mph last year through Turn 9.

13 -- Positions in the point standings Greg Biffle has improved in six races. He was 23rd in the standings after Talladega and is now 10th in points after six top-10s, three top-fives and a victory at Darlington.

14 -- Points that separate ninth-place Denny Hamlin and 12th-palce Kyle Busch in the Nextel Cup standings.

22.83 -- Average finish for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Infineon. His best finish at the track was 11th in 2003.

23.2 -- Average finish for points leader Jimmie Johnson at Infineon. His best finish at the track was fifth in 2004, his only top-10.

32 -- Laps led by Jeff Gordon last year at Infineon before coming to pit road on Lap 41 with his car stuck in fourth gear. Gordon battled back from a lap down to finish 33rd.

33.82 -- Percent of passes made last year in Turns 11 and 12 -- the paperclip turn that leads into the slight left-hand turn heading toward the start/finish line. It was the most popular place to pass.

41 -- Laps led by Sterling Marlin in his 17 races at Infineon, the most among full-time drivers who have not won at the track.

44 -- Total passes made in Turns 8 and 9 last year, the S-turns that represent the fastest part of the track.

75 -- Passes made by Bobby Labonte last year at Infineon. He started 33rd and finished 18th.

93.402 -- Speed, in miles per hour, that Robby Gordon ran Lap 45 last year at Infineon to rank as the fastest of the race. He also clocked the second-fastest lap at 93.371 mph.

393 -- Laps led by Jeff Gordon at Infineon Raceway, more than twice the amount of Mark Martin (161), who is second on the list.

1957 -- Year that two NASCAR road-course races were held in the same day. Buck Baker won a 100-mile race at Watkins Glen on Aug. 4, 1957, and Parnelli Jones won a 72-mile race at Kitsap County Airport in Bremerton, Wash., later that day.

Sunday's race at Infineon will be NASCAR's 100th road-course race. Excluding the Daytona Beach and Road Course, the series has visited 10 different road courses since the first event at Linden, N.J., on June 13, 1954.

On the Road Again

Road courses that NASCAR has visited since 1954

Track	Location	Races
Riverside Int'l Raceway	Riverside, Calif.	48
Watkins Glen Int'l	Watkins Glen, N.Y.	23
Infineon Raceway	Sonoma, Calif.	17
Bridgehampton Raceway	Bridgehampton, N.Y.	4
Willow Springs Speedway	Lancaster, Calif.	2
Linden Airport	Linden, N.J.	1
Cocoa Speedway	Titusville, Fla.	1
Augusta Int'l Speedway	Augusta, Ga.	1
Road America	Elkhart Lakes, Wis.	1
Kitsap County Airport	Bremerton, Wash.	1

All External sites will open in a new browser window. NASCAR.COM does not endorse external sites.

NASCAR.COM is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network