Race report

NASCAR

Will Rodgers bests Cup stars for first K&N West win at Sonoma

After winning the pole in last year’s race at Sonoma and finishing second, Rodgers passed Aric Almirola with 13 laps to go to score his first K&N Pro Series West victory.

Tim Southers

Edited: Jun 24, 2018, 3:41 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Polesitter Will Rodgers

Will Rodgers

William Byron

Aric Almirola, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Fusion Smithfield

Hailie Deegan

Some drivers are known to have a knack on particular tracks and Rodgers is quickly becoming known as an ace on the road courses.

One week after winning the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race at New Jersey Motorsports Park, Rodgers started from the pole and won his fourth consecutive start on a road course in K&N competition.

Rodgers, who finished second in this race to Kevin Harvick last year, was able to get by another Cup regular when he passed Almirola on Lap 51 and held the lead for the remainder of the 64-lap event.

Almirola came home second to lead Cup interlopers. William Byron and Daniel Suarez finished third and fourth, respectively, with Ryan Partridge completing the top-five.

Erik Jones was sixth with NASCAR Next driver Hailie Deegan finishing seventh in her first career road course race.. Derek Thorn was eighth with Cole Keatts and Derek Kraus rounding out the top ten.

Rodgers started from the pole position and led the first 21 laps of the race before pitting during the first break of the race. Almirola decided to stay out and took the top spot, leading until Lap 38 when Suarez overtook him.

Suarez remained out front until the final break of the race on Lap 40 when everyone came to pit road with the exception of Suarez and David Mayhew.

On the ensuing restart, Almirola made a three-wide pass for the lead at Turn 11, retaking control of the race on Lap 44 until Rodgers moved into the lead on Lap 51.

Thorn finished leads in the standings by one point over Partridge (254-253) with Kraus 14 points back in third.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Former NASCAR Mexico champion Ruben Garcia Jr. wins first U.S. race

Next article NASCAR Roundtable: Watkins Glen will give others a chance to shine

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Sebastien Bourdais hopes latest WEC success will remind teams of his value

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

52 min

Sebastien Bourdais hopes latest WEC success will remind teams of his value

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

1 h

"It's horribly painful" - Williams drops 2026 car upgrades to benefit 2027

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

FIA F3

The lowdown on this year’s FIA F3 title protagonists

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

3 h

Iker Lecuona felt significant differences between Ducati's GP25 and GP26

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts