SONOMA, California – At the point where State Route 116 turns from Lakeville Highway onto Stage Gulch Road, just across from a horse ranch, sits Ernie’s Tin Bar, a place surely created during a meeting of the gods of beer and wine and old cars and actual conversation.
You can’t use your cell phone at Ernie’s, which immediately makes it wondrous. That and the rusting blue Chrysler in the garage portion of the bar. Yes, you read that right. You can drink in Ernie’s garage or just stand and chat among the work benches, cans of lubricants and toolboxes. You also can take a shuttle to and from the place from anywhere within a 15-mile radius.
For obvious reasons, we’ll miss Ernie’s. We’ll miss pretty much everything about this part of the world. But mostly, we’ll miss this race and this racetrack and its place on the INDYCAR schedule. We won't go far away; it's being replaced by WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca some 150 miles to the south next year. But we won't be coming back here, and that makes us sad.
Sonoma Raceway has been the site of the Verizon IndyCar Series season finale since 2015. It has been part of the schedule every year since 2005. Dan Gurney won here in 1970. Since then, everything else has been icing.
It’s not going anywhere, this distinguished road course on a hillside at Sears Point, which juts into the San Pablo Bay just 11 miles from downtown Sonoma and 27 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge. The track will remain on the NASCAR and NHRA schedules, so racers and their fans will continue to visit. But after Sunday’s INDYCAR Grand Prix of Sonoma, it won’t be on the Verizon IndyCar Series calendar, adding a sense of sorrow to the championship drama.
Scott Dixon, for one, enjoys visiting the area, but probably not for the reason you’d think. He’s into watches. Not your average Swatch or Fossil, but expensive, collectible watches. Rolex and Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin and such. Not surprisingly, the Bay Area – and California in general – are hotbeds for those looking to buy and sell rare watches. Among them is a New Zealander who happens to be a championship race-car driver.
“For me, California is a fun place to be,” says Dixon, who has a 29-point lead over Alexander Rossi in the championship standings as the three-day weekend is set to begin Friday. “I love coming to San Francisco. I love catching up with friends. There’s a big community of watch collectors here. There’s just a lot of diversity here. There are a lot of ex-pats here – Kiwis and Aussies. I like the laid-back feel here in Sonoma. And I enjoy wine, which certainly helps.”
The on-track memories from the open-wheel genre begin with Gurney’s win in a USAC Champ Car Series race in April 1970 over Mario Andretti and Al Unser. A major open-wheel series didn’t return to the track until 2005, when Tony Kanaan beat Buddy Rice to the finish line, then did push-ups in victory lane. The following year, Marco Andretti posted the first win of his career.
Dixon has won three times here. So has Will Power. Perhaps the most dramatic incident in INDYCAR’s history at Sonoma happened between the two of them in 2013, when Dixon clipped a Team Penske crew member while leaving the pits. The controversy and penalty cost Dixon a win, leading to a change in rules regarding cars and crew members during pit stops.
As for the non-race memories, well, you can start with the sheep. The track, which was built on the site of a ranch, still keeps 3,000 sheep for lawnmowing (and thereby firefighting) purposes. Robert Redford’s “Little Fauss and Big Halsy” was filmed at the track in 1970. Filmways Inc., the production company that gave us “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction,” owned the track briefly. No word on whether the herd of sheep is related.
For Andretti Autosport, which has a breathtaking hospitality area at the top of the hill overlooking Turns 2 and 3, the non-racing memories include Andretti Winery in nearby Napa. In part because of the location of the winery, the team is expected to host more than 500 guests this weekend.
“This race always falls around my wife Beccy’s birthday,” Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay said. “We have a lot of great memories of birthday celebrations in downtown Sonoma. It’s a great place to be. With the Andretti Winery here and the events we have with all of our sponsors, everybody comes out to this race and has a great time. It’s a beautiful area, and one of my favorite places in the world. I’m definitely going to miss it.”
He’s not alone. “I’ll miss the Monday wine tours,” Dixon said with a grin.
This is a good time – the last time for some – to take the shuttle to Ernie’s. Power down the phone, hoist a few and actually talk to each other about an unusual racetrack in a memorable corner of the world.
It will continue on, and maybe – hopefully – we’ll get back here again.