STEWART SNAPS 84-RACE SKID, FOILS HAMLIN IN SONOMA THRILLER

Tony Stewart rolled to victory Sunday at Sonoma Raceway, bumping past Denny Hamlin in the final turn to post his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of the season and keep his hopes alive for a fourth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series title in his final championship campaign.

Stewart, who led 22 of the 110 laps, guided the Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Chevrolet to a .625-second margin of victory in the Toyota/Save Mart 350. His third win on the 1.99-mile road course was the 49th of his Sprint Cup career.

Stewart, who missed the first eight races of his final NASCAR championship campaign, now has one component accomplished of his goal to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series playoffs. He'll need to advance into the top 30 in points, a position he's just nine points away from in 32nd.

Hamlin, who grabbed the lead from Stewart in Turn 7 on the final lap before sliding high in the last of 11 turns, led a race-high 33 laps and ended up second in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 Toyota. Joey Logano, the winner at Michigan in the series' previous race, took third place.

Edwards, who won the Coors Light Pole Award in Saturday's qualifying, led 24 laps and finished fourth in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 Toyota. Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top five in the first of two road-racing events this season for the Sprint Cup Series.

Road-racing expert AJ Allmendinger led 20 laps in the JTG Daugherty No. 47 Chevrolet and finished 14th. His team was penalized for an uncontrolled tire on a Lap 88 pit stop, knocking him from contention.

Kyle Busch, a Sonoma winner one year ago, wound up seventh in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota.

Home-state driver Kyle Larson spent much of the day in the top five, but fell from contention with a pit-road speeding penalty in a Lap 70 stop. He finished 12th.

Notes: Clint Bowyer, a winner at Sonoma in 2012, was sidelined after completing just five laps by an electrical issue that filled the cockpit of his No. 15 Chevrolet with smoke. "Smoke is never good in the cockpit and it stinks. Hell, I couldn't breathe," said Bowyer, who finished last in the 40-car field. … Former NASCAR Next driver Dylan Lupton finished 35th in his Sprint Cup debut, the last driver on the lead lap. … Sunday before the race, Toyota -- the race co-sponsor and the track's official vehicle -- announced a three-year extension of its partnership with Sonoma Raceway. The deal continues a sponsorship that has been in place since 2007. … The series' next race is scheduled Saturday at Daytona International Speedway, which will host the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola (7:45 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM).

This story will be updated.

Sprint Cup pit stall assignments for today’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma

While Carl Edwards will start Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 from the pole at Sonoma Raceway, he’ll be in pit stall No. 11 and have an opening in front.

California native AJ Allmendinger has the first pit stall (stall No. 2) with Chase Elliott behind him.

By contrast, Aric Almirola and Tony Stewart have the last stalls on pit road.

Matt Kenseth lost his selection of pit stalls because his team received a fourth warning for an inspection issue that came before qualifying Saturday at Sonoma. Kenseth will have Brian Scott in front of him and Josh Wise behind.

Here’s how the pit stall assignments look:

Today’s Sprint Cup race at Sonoma: Start time, weather, radio/TV info and lineup

Here’s all you need to know for the first Sprint Cup road course race of the season.

(All times are Eastern):

START: Ruben Arminana, Sonoma State University President, will give the command to start engines at 3:08 p.m. Green flag is set for 3:20 p.m.

DISTANCE: The race is 110 laps (218.9 miles) around the 1.99-mile road course.

PRERACE SCHEDULE: Sprint Cup garage opens at 10 a.m. Driver/crew chief meeting is at 1 p.m. Driver introductions begin at 2:30 p.m. The invocation will be given at 3 p.m. by Tim Bove, track minister at Sonoma Raceway.

NATIONAL ANTHEM: Q Smith, Transcendence Theatre’s Broadway Under the Stars in Sonoma Valley, will perform the anthem at 3:01 p.m.

TV/RADIO: Fox Sports 1 will broadcast the race at 3 p.m. (RaceDay begins at 1:30 p.m.) Performance Racing Network’s broadcast on radio and at goprn.com begins at 2 p.m. SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the PRN broadcast.

FORECAST: wunderground.com forecasts a temperature of 83 degree with 0 percent chance of rain at the start of the race.

LAST TIME: Kyle Busch took the lead with five laps left to win this race a year ago. Kurt Busch finished second with Clint Bowyer third. Jimmie Johnson led a race-high 45 laps and finished sixth.

STARTING LINEUP:

Byron takes over lead in Truck Series standings after Gateway

William Byron failed to earn his third straight NASCAR Camping World Truck Series win in Saturday’s Drivin for Linemen 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park.

Although he finished 17th, it still was a good day for the rookie driver as he jumped to the top of the Truck Series point standings.

Byron knocked Matt Crafton from the top spot. Byron leads Crafton by one point. Timothy Peters is five points behind Byron.

The series’ next race is July 7 at Kentucky Speedway.

Here’s how the Truck Series points look after Gateway:

Victimized by cyber attack, NASCAR Sprint Cup team finds help from new partner

A NASCAR Sprint Cup team was the victim of a cyber attack earlier this year and paid a ransom to retrieve valuable information.

Since the attack, the No. 95 Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing team has partnered with Malwarebytes, a malware prevention and remediation solution company.

The team stated in a release that computers with track data from races and test facilities and personnel information were infected. Those responsible demanded the team pay a ransom within 48 hours or lose their data.

The team valued the information being held hostage — car part lists, custom high-profile simulation setups, etc. — at $2 million. The team stated that it would have taken 1,500 man-hours to recreate the information.

“Just knowing that we could lose everything that we had worked so hard to achieve was terrifying,” crew chief Dave Winston said in a team release. “The data that they were threatening to take from us was priceless, we couldn’t go one day without it greatly impacting the team’s future success. This was a completely foreign experience for all of us, and we had no idea what to do. What we did know was that if we didn’t get the files back, we would lose years worth of work valued at millions of dollars.”

After paying the ransom, the team sought a company to protect its computer data. After running and installing Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, the company found and eliminated malware infection from more than 10,000 files.

“Like most companies, we felt we had solid security in place on our digital intelligence with our software and firewalls, but this is a very new threat,” said Jeremy Lange, vice president at Circle Sport-Leavine Family Racing. “It’s an area of coverage that you don’t realize you need until it happens to you. We’re lucky that it all worked out, and now having this partnership with Malwarebytes, we hope to inform NASCAR fans and the industry of this threat and the solution.”

Ben Rhodes sweeps Camping World Truck practices at Gateway

Ben Rhodes posted the fastest lap in Saturday’s final practice session for the Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway Motorsports Park with a lap of 135.755 mph. Rhodes also was the fastest in the opening session Saturday at 135.738 mph.

Johnny Sauter was second in Saturday’s final practice at 135.510 mph with John Hunter Nemechek third at 135.054 mph.

Rico Abreu, who crashed in the first practice session, did not make it on the track for the final session. His team was busy preparing the backup. He will have no laps on that vehicle at Gateway when he qualifies at 5:45 p.m. ET today. The race is at 8:30 p.m. ET.

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Jeff Gordon open to co-hosting morning talk show with Kelly Ripa

Jeff Gordon says he’ll be back in the Fox Sports booth next season but the question is if he’ll have other broadcasting work.

The four-time champion said he would “welcome” the opportunity to succeed Michael Strahan as “Live” co-host with Kelly Ripa on the morning talk show. Gordon has co-hosted the show nine times with Ripa. A recent report stated he was on a short list of candidates to replace Strahan, who left the show for a full-time job on “Good Morning America.’’

“I’m flattered that my name has been associated with that,’’ Gordon told reporters Saturday at Sonoma Raceway. “I’ve always maintained a great friendship with the show and some of the producers and folks within the show. I had a great time co-hosting on that show, and I mean, I certainly would welcome it.

“My priority is Fox and Fox Sports and NASCAR, so I will definitely be back in the booth next year. If there was something that would fit into and around that, great. I don’t know if that’s a reality, but it’s been really interesting kind of seeing that unfold. I really don’t have anything that I can say about it.’’

This weekend marks the final Sprint Cup race broadcast for Fox Sports. NBC Sports takes over the broadcast of Cup and Xfinity races the rest of the year.

Heading into his final race broadcast of the year, how does Gordon rate his rookie season in the booth?

“I feel a lot more confident and comfortable,’’ he said. “I know my colleagues that I’m working with far better. I kind of know what to look for, what to ask for, and where I fit in better than I certainly did then. It’s been a lot of fun.

“I still have a lot of things to work on. Somebody talking in your ear while you’re trying to create a thought … start it and finish it and do it in 20 seconds is not an easy task, certainly not for me, so there’s certainly plenty of things there that I’d like to do better, but I like what I’m seeing out there.’’

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