By J.D. Hellman

If you're a NASCAR Cup driver, you've gotta get it right at Sonoma Raceway.

Namely, you have to do more than turn left. There's also about a dozen right-handed turns you'll have to successfully navigate about 110 times in this 110-lap race around the twisting, turning 1.99-mile road course in Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350k in Sonoma, CA.

Three drivers who typically excelled at Sonoma won't be there Sunday -- all due to retirement (or hiatus): Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart, who earned his 49th and last NASCAR Cup career win in last year's race. That leaves the trophy available to a new cast of characters.

There's lots of ground to cover -- both literally and figuratively -- at Sonoma, so let's get started with five of the top storylines going into Sunday's race.

Sixteenth verse, same as the first? If it wasn't so serious, it might actually be a joke: What's happened to Joe Gibbs Racing? This will be the 16th race of the Cup series season, and neither Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, nor rookie Daniel Suarez have reached Victory Lane. Busch is especially noteworthy in that he hasn't won a Cup race since last year's Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis almost a full year ago. Sure, all four JGR drivers have chipped away at reaching the hallowed ground -- some so close they could taste it (that would be Busch) -- yet they've still failed to seal the deal. Kyle has won twice before at Sonoma, including 2015. Could this be the week he finally gets the big winless monkey off his back?

There's always a first time: So far this season, we've seen 10 different race winners in the Cup series, including three first-time winners: Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Ryan Blaney. But there are still plenty of potential first-timers knocking on the door, led by Chase Elliott -- who many folks thought would have taken a Cup checkered flag by now. Could Elliott finally break through on a track where his talent is suspect at best?

Whatever happened to SHR? While so much is being made about Joe Gibbs Racing's foibles, there's one other organization that is gaining increasing scrutiny. Remember Stewart-Haas Racing? You know, the team that won the 2014 NASCAR Cup championship? The one that Tony Stewart used to drive for? In the first 15 races of 2017, SHR has managed just one trophy: Kurt Busch's classic Daytona 500 win. Other than that, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, and Danica Patrick have all failed to reach victory lane in 2017. The biggest surprise has been Harvick, who at this point in past seasons would have had at least one or two--or more. Harvick was a poor road course driver early in his Cup career, but he's become one of the best over the last 10 years.



The "other" Kyle is on a breakout path: Kyle Larson is known as a driver with great potential, one of the sport's brightest young stars. But in his first three seasons in the Cup series, Larson made plenty of mistakes and failed to live up to many expectations. However, 2017 is a different story. Not only is Larson near the top of the points standings, but he also has two wins -- Fontana and Michigan -- and more than one-half of a season to add a few more checkered flags. Larson appears a lot more confident and loose, which is showing in his performances. He's not as critical about himself as he was in the past (a lesson Elliott could learn), and success has come, as a result.

Fifteen down, 11 to go to the cut-off: That phrase says it all for all Cup drivers. With 11 races to go in the 26-race regular season, a number of drivers are still on the outside looking in when it comes to qualifying for the 10-race playoffs (formerly known as the Chase). Consider some of the names who have still yet to qualify on wins: Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Jamie McMurray, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Erik Jones, Kasey Kahne, Paul Menard, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is retiring at season's end. Oh, and let's not forget Joey Logano. Even though he won at Richmond, that race finish was ruled encumbered by NASCAR, meaning the "W" does not count towards the playoffs due to a technical violation found in post-race inspection. That means Logano needs to win at least one more race between now and the playoff-qualifying cutoff at Richmond in September. One of the last things NASCAR needs is to have so many major stars fail to make the playoffs.

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