Sonoma, CA - Paul Menard capped a weekend in wine country with a frustrating 34th-place finish at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California. Normally a track and form of racing Menard looks forward to, the twisty road course could not seem to agree with his #15 Menards-Johns Manville Chevrolet.

"It's just been a really frustrating weekend here," said Menard. "We weren't terrible when we rolled off the truck Friday - we were kinda in the middle, but felt like we could improve. Instead we went the other way and could never find forward bite. When we did seem to find some grip, it hurt the car so much in other areas that I think we got to a point, especially today (Sunday), where we just had to grunt it out and deal with it."

Looking to capitalize on fuel strategy and good mileage, Menard and crew chief Doug Randolph wanted to have a clean race and hopefully gain positions late by only stopping twice. The strategy seemed solid and Menard was gutting out consistent laps. But a crazy episode in the pits during the team's second stop changed everything. The combination of an ill-timed caution (which occurred while Menard was in the pits), a small pit miscue by the team and the position of our pit box led to Menard going a lap down.

To be honest, I still don't understand why he went a lap down, a lot of people were scratching their heads on this.

Regardless, once a lap down it became a race to finish, which Menard did in 34th, dropping him one spot in the overall driver's points standing to 26th.

"We had such a good run last weekend in Michigan and then we came here and got slugged in the gut. I'm mad, I'm frustrated, I'm glad it's over. Got a couple days to forget about it and then go to Loudon which is a place I really like, so it's a good opportunity there to turn it back around."