There is no question that race drivers often have differences of opinion regarding the cars they drive and the race tracks they compete on, but nothing may spur debate like road racing.

...with only two road-racing circuits on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, NASCAR drivers know a bad outing on a road course can change the course of one’s season.

Some love it. Some hate it. Others simply tolerate it.
But with only two road-racing circuits on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, NASCAR drivers know a bad outing on a road course can change the course of one’s season.
Now, many teams are using road-racing ringers to try to keep their team’s standing within the top 35, others send their drivers to road-racing schools, but for the most part, NASCAR’s top echelon of stock-car racers are darn good road racers.
Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart own six championships between them and they have won seven of the last 10 races at Infineon Raceway, the first of the two (Watkins Glen Int’l in New York) road-racing stops on the schedule.
Many drivers like Robby Gordon circle the road courses on the calendar as their best chances to win.
Robby Gordon, who has extensive experience road racing and has two of his three Cup victories on road courses, believes drivers are more important on the road courses than the ovals.
“I think the driver plays a bigger role on a road course, to be honest. I think the team plays a bigger role on the ovals,” Gordon said. “What I mean by that is, on an (oval track) the driver makes up about 10-15 percent of the equation and then the difference between the good drivers is just a little bit. When we come to a road course, I think (the driver) is a bigger part of the equation.”
Kevin Harvick has won on the road course at Watkins Glen and likes road racing.
“I enjoy the road races,” he explained. “I was fortunate to grow up racing sprint go-karts on all the road course stuff. I enjoy coming out here and doing something different than what we do every other week.”
While the Gordons and Stewart and other NASCAR drivers like Harvick enjoy and have tasted success on road courses, some like Dale Earnhardt, Jr., do not.
“Oh, I’m going to screw up,” said Earnhardt after qualifying at Sonoma. “Trust me, I’ll screw it up. Yeah, it’s good to know you got a cushion. I think I can get through Watkins Glen OK, I just don’t run good here. 
“I never liked coming here,” he continued. “I don’t like the track. It’s not a fun track to compete on. It’s fun to go around and goof off and raise a little bit of hell. I don’t like being in competition on it, it’s difficult and these cars ain’t built for it, know what I mean?”
Harvick understands why so many NASCAR drivers hate road courses.
“I think the biggest thing is that you can lose so much ground here if something goes wrong,” Harvick said. “It can be a bad weekend, just like it can anywhere else. You need to work at it and try to make things as good as you can.
“Whether you are good or bad at it, you got to try to keep getting better at it, to try to improve as everybody else is improving. We have always focused on the road races to try to be as good as we could. Some people don’t. We always go test, go practice and try and get in to a rhythm.”
Bobby Labonte spoke for many when he described his qualifying effort at Infineon Raceway.
“I just tried not to screw up,” he said.