With seven laps left in the race, Mark Martin tried to pass Tommy Kendall, subbing for an injured Kyle Petty.

Rudd led to the white flag and was contending to win the race, his second Sonoma victory, and to advance his championship points to the lead.

The last Sonoma NASCAR race held at the previous road course passage was in 1997 on October 5 at a Truck Series event.

There, Joe Ruttman won the race but controversy erupted when Rich Bickle blamed a loss of a top-ten finish on rookie Boris Said.

NASCAR, after a brief red flag for a massive crash in a wall of tires, disqualified Said and fined him $10,000 for his actions.

In 2019, the race returned to the full 2.52 miles (4.06 km) road course layout to commemorate its 50th anniversary.

Before the 1994 race, a makeshift auxiliary pit road was constructed inside the hairpin (turn 11) nicknamed Gilligan's Island.

Teams sent only the primary pit crew to Gilligan's Island, and once they were there, they could not access the garage area or their transporters to collect spare parts/tools.

Changes to the track in 2002 that included a separation of the drag strip from the front stretch, removal of the main drag strip grandstand, and the new control tower for road racing led to the pit road being expanded by extending pit road into the main straight and moving the pit exit up the hill past Turn 1, thereby expanding it to 43 cars, and Gilligan's Island was abandoned.