All the comforts of home amid the chaos of Sonoma Raceway

More than 1,300 overnight campsites at Sonoma Raceway provide their own action in advance of this weekend’s races.|

From their campsite atop Cougar Mountain near the southern tip of Sonoma County, Alan and Donna Sobers could see San Francisco’s skyline and Mount Diablo across the bay in Contra Costa County.

Just below and much closer to the wind-whipped site where the San Jose couple’s 30-foot fifth-wheel trailer was parked for the weekend lay Sonoma Raceway, slithering like an asphalt serpent over the hills at Sears Point.

“We like it up here at the top, out of the commotion, the craziness,” said Alan Sobers, a diehard NASCAR fan wearing a black T-shirt with an image of the late Dale Earnhardt and his legendary black car No. 3.

Commotion will reign Saturday and Sunday at the largest and loudest sporting event in Sonoma County, with about 100,000 energetic spectators watching dozens of 725-horsepower machines roar 174 times - in separate races, one each day - around the 1.99-mile road course.

To get close to the action, the Soberses will ride motorcycles down from the Cougar Mountain Campground to the Earnhardt Terrace on Turn 2, returning to their elevated retreat when the motor-mania ceases.

“The real fun starts at night,” said Alan Sobers, who’s been at every Sonoma Raceway NASCAR event, but one, since 1989. “Everybody gets together and barbecues and eats.”

As the couple set up camp Thursday afternoon, Alan Sobers hoisted a pole displaying the American flag and a banner for Dale Earnhardt Jr., No. 88.

He fondly recalled the 1995 race, when Earnhardt Sr., known as The Intimidator, got by Mark Martin late with an inside pass on Turn 6 and went on to win the only Sears Point event of his legendary career.

Sobers also recalled paying $50 to camp at the raceway in the early 1990s. In those days, Sobers came with his son, Matt, who was left free to roam the track property on a little Honda 70 motorcycle. One time, he located Matt riding on the paved racetrack.

Matt and his wife, Jen, were due to arrive Thursday at the campsites on Cougar Mountain, which cost $299.75, almost as cheap as they come among the more than 1,300 campsites in five areas.

Way over on the east side of the track, Clint and Lola Fjarli of Medford, Ore. were making camp around their gleaming 37-foot recreational vehicle at the Turn 8 Campground, where 20 spaces cost $2,452.50 apiece, the priciest accommodations at the raceway.

The area, just three years old, is shy on ambiance: a flat, graveled area with no trees or grass. But it’s just a bit uphill and about 170 feet away from the track at Turn 8, and the raceway website says campers “will be on top of the action coming out of Turn 7 as the cars mash the pedal through the Esses.”

“I love racing,” Clint Fjarli said. “I love speed.”

Fjarli, a developer of industrial buildings, said he was a pretty successful oval track racer for 10 years in his youth, winning races in Washington and Oregon.

The Turn 8 camp is a sociable place, he said. “That’s the most fun until the race starts.”

“They’re all great people,” Lola Fjarli said.

Admitting that she wasn’t initially a NASCAR fan, Fjarli said the sport has grown on her and she’s a fan of Earnhardt Jr. “It helps if you’ve got someone to root for,” she said.

The big RV, meanwhile, provides all the comforts of home, she said.

Clint Fjarli said you have to bring everything you need with you because there’s no driving out in a lumbering vehicle amid the weekend crowd.

The couple brought along two scooters - one gas and one electric - to get around the sprawling raceway property.

The 50 Acres Campground, on a flat grassy field across Highway 121 from the raceway, was a small city on Thursday afternoon, packed with RVs, fifth wheels and trailers large and small. The campsite fee is $250.70, the cheapest at the raceway.

Craig Childress and his wife, Kelly Noble, of Newbury Park in Ventura County, were set up in one of the smaller rigs, a 17-foot travel trailer.

“It’s not too bad,” Childress said. “Just the two of us. It works good.”

The little unit fits in their driveway and can be towed by a Jeep Rubicon, unlike the 26-footer they previously owned that had to be stored and required a brawnier towing vehicle.

Childress, making his second trip to the raceway after years attending the California Speedway at Fontana, said he’s all in on racing.

“If it’s got a motor and goes fast, I like to watch it,” he said. “I’d like to drive it, but I can’t afford it.”

They have grandstand seats to take in the races.

The three camping couples all said they will wait until Monday morning to head home, rather than fight Sunday’s traffic.

“You can see them from here,” Donna Sobers said atop Cougar Mountain. “Rows and rows of cars, just not moving.”

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner

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