Race fans will be treated to the best air show on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit, as well as one of the greatest managers in Major League Baseball history at the Toyota/Save Mart 350 on Sunday, June 24.
The Patriots Jet Team, the nation’s only civilian aerobatic jet team, will highlight the festivities for a seventhconsecutive year with gloss black Aero L-39 Albatros jets and signature red, white and blue smoke trails.
The Patriots, based in Bryon in East Contra Costa County, will utilize six of these jets in the show on Sunday of NASCAR weekend. You can catch their electrifying 25-minute show in the skies above the raceway at 10:50 a.m. (PST).
Tony La Russa, arguably the greatest manager in history, will serve as Grand Marshal of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 and help give the command of, “Drivers Start Your Engines.”
La Russa will be honored on Friday night of race weekend at the Children’s Champions Grand Marshal’s Banquet at beautiful Cline Cellars in Sonoma. The gala is a fundraiser for the Sonoma Chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities.
La Russa, who still calls the Bay Area home, posted three World Series victories during his 33-year managerial career, one coming with the Oakland Athletics (1989) and two with the St. Louis Cardinals, most recently in 2011. His other world championship with the Cardinals came in 2006. He retired after the 2011 season. Four times he was named Manager of the Year, three times in the American League and he posted 2,278 victories as a manager, third all-time behind Connie Mack and John McGraw
“I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR weekend,” La Russa said. “Competition in sports has been at the heart of my professional life. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is an outstanding example of competition and I’m excited to be able to observe it up close and personal at the raceway.”
Race fans will also be treated to a performance of the National Anthem by the University of California Marching Band, plus rides on a 70-foot ferris wheel, an expansive vendor midway, Q&A sessions with NASCAR legends Donnie Allison and Marvin Panch and more during race weekend.
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