Sonoma’s road course goes quiet on Thursday nights. Maintenance crews finish, the surrounding hills exhale, and the only sound is wind through eucalyptus. By Friday morning it will not be quiet again until Memorial Day evening.
I will be in the paddock with press credentials for all three days of the 2026 Velocity Invitational, and what’s about to fire up over there has changed enough from last year to warrant a fresh look. The venue is new. The headliner roster is new. The Friday night programming is new. And the format that earned Velocity its “American Goodwood” nickname from Motor1 last year is now backed by Goodwood itself, which licenses the Velocity livestream as part of its own broadcast.
Key Takeaways
- Dates: May 29 to 31, 2026 at Sonoma Raceway, 29355 Arnold Drive, Sonoma, CA. Gate 1 is the main entrance.
- GA pricing: $159 Friday, $199 Saturday or Sunday, $249 full weekend. Pre-sale rates run lower. Kids 15 and under are $5 with a paid adult.
- 2026 headliners: Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull F1) Saturday, Lia Block (rally) Sunday, Sung Kang (DRIFTER, Fast & Furious) Friday.
- Friday Night Meet: Sung Kang’s AE86 Trueno on display, a DRIFTER film preview with Q&A, and Hagerty photographer Larry Chen co-hosting. Included in any Friday GA ticket.
- Saturday Sonoma Room is sold out. The Forum at Turn 1 still has Sunday wine-tasting passes at $219.
- Bring: ear protection, a jacket, closed-toed shoes. Outside food and drink are not permitted in the paddock.
What’s Running at Sonoma
The lineup spans more than seventy years of motorsport. Historic groups cover 1950s and 1960s sports and GT cars, Le Mans prototypes, Formula 1, NASCAR, World Rally Championship cars, and Formula DRIFT machinery. New for 2026: a Porsche Sprint Challenge race added to the card, current championship metal that runs alongside the vintage groups without pretending to be from the same era.
The marque focus this year leans Ferrari, Shelby, Porsche, and RUF. Period-correct examples of each will run in their respective groups, then return to the paddock where you can walk up and read the build dates off the chassis plates.
The Cars & Bids paddock auction I wrote about in April anchors on a 1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ on loan from the Petersen Automotive Museum. Bidding happens online. Physical inspection happens in the paddock, with the lots staged where you can lean over the fender.
The “American Goodwood” line is a fair shorthand, not a literal description. Goodwood Revival is themed Cotswolds pageantry on Lord March’s estate. Velocity is a working road course on a Sonoma hillside. What the two events share is a refusal to treat vintage racing as static museum work. Goodwood agrees enough with the Velocity model to license the livestream and broadcast it as part of its own programming.
The Move From Laguna Seca to Sonoma
Prior years of Velocity ran at Laguna Seca. That was always a great venue for the cars, but the paddock topology made the no-velvet-ropes promise harder to deliver: tight, terraced, organized around the existing tenants. Sonoma’s paddock is wider and flatter. The pit lane is longer. Spectator sight lines from the upper hill cover most of the road course’s elevation changes in one sweep. It is a more permissive venue for a festival of this shape.
The move shows up in the search data, too. People still type “Laguna Seca Velocity Invitational” into Google twenty times a month. The brand has equity at the old address that has not transferred yet. For longtime attendees, that means parking is different, dining is different, and the drive in is different.
The Weekly Driver covered the 2022 Laguna Seca edition when Mario Andretti headlined. The Sonoma version will feel like a relocation of the same event rather than a reboot.
Paddock Access Comes With Every GA Ticket
The Velocity pitch is paddock access. Other vintage events talk about it. Velocity is the one that delivers, and the move to Sonoma sharpens the case rather than dilutes it. GA tickets get you into the paddock without a separate add-on. You can walk past the Le Mans prototypes between sessions, watch teams change tires on a 1965 Shelby Mustang, and lean over the rope at the Cars & Bids auction lots without a hospitality wristband.
There is a fair pushback to the access claim that deserves space. Hospitality tiers still exist. The Sonoma Room at Turn 11 sells weekend access for $1,499 a person, with full catering, gourmet meals, and wine pairings.
The Forum at Turn 1 is $219 for a single Sunday and includes wine and spirits tastings. The Driver’s Club at $1,999 bundles in a Saturday VIP dinner and valet parking.
None of those packages are the same experience as walking the paddock with a Friday GA wristband.
A general-admission ticket is the right call if you came for the cars and the paddock. The hospitality tiers are the right call if you came for the wine and the catering and the seated view at Turn 11. The cars on track are the same in both cases.
Friday: The Soft Open, and the After-Party
Friday is the day to come if you have not been to Velocity before. The crowds are smaller, the paddock is most navigable, and qualifying sessions run for almost every group on the card.
GA is $159 at the gate or lower if you bought pre-sale. The official session-by-session schedule has not been published as of Tuesday, but qualifying days at vintage events tend to start around 9 a.m. and run continuously to mid-afternoon, with breaks for paddock tours and demo laps.
Two things make Friday more than just the open: Dai Yoshihara and the Friday Night Meet.
Yoshihara is a Formula Drift champion and Hollywood stunt driver. He is running demo laps Friday afternoon. Sonoma’s combination of tight infield corners with a long back-straight gives drift drivers an unusual canvas, since most of Formula Drift’s professional series runs on courses designed expressly for the discipline. Watching a champion improvise on a road course is a Friday-only event.
Then the Friday Night Meet. Sung Kang, who plays Han in the Fast & Furious franchise and produced the AE86-focused drift film DRIFTER, is bringing his Trueno drift car for static display and live signing.
Larry Chen, Hagerty photographer and the closest thing the modern car-culture circuit has to a roving documentarian, co-hosts. The DRIFTER film preview runs that evening with a Q&A session.
This is the most accessible after-party of the weekend. It is included in any Friday GA ticket and not gated behind a hospitality package.
Friday is the value pick of the three days. If you are budgeting one day, this is the one.
Saturday: The Marquee Day
Saturday is the day the broadcast cameras are pointed at, and the day the biggest names are at the track.
Yuki Tsunoda, currently Test and Reserve Driver for Red Bull Racing’s F1 program, will drive historic racing machinery at Sonoma for the first time. He has driven F1 cars, super-license-qualifying junior single-seaters, and current GT3 metal, but he has not turned a lap in a 1960s sports racer on this circuit.
What he picks to drive on Saturday is one of the open questions of the weekend.
Group races run through most of the day. The new Porsche Sprint Challenge feature slots in between vintage sessions, giving the Saturday card a modern motorsport anchor for spectators who came for the speeds rather than the patinas. Drift demos continue. The Cars & Bids auction lots remain open for inspection, with the most active bidding window pulling toward Saturday evening.
The hospitality story on Saturday is itself news. The Sonoma Room at Turn 11, a single-day pass at $999 or weekend at $1,499, is already sold out for Saturday specifically.
That is a clear demand signal. People who can afford a thousand-dollar lunch want to be at Velocity on Saturday.
The Forum at Turn 1, the wine-tasting hospitality at $219 a Sunday or higher on Saturday, still has Sunday availability but Saturday is gone. The Driver’s Club package at $1,999 a person includes Saturday’s VIP dinner, which is the premium evening dining program of the event and the only formal sit-down meal inside the racetrack gates.
Saturday is the day people post photos from. It is also the most expensive single-day pass at $199 walk-up.
Sunday: The Auction Climax and the Memorial Day Closer
Sunday is when the Cars & Bids auction concludes, the timing chosen so spectators can watch the final hours of bidding wrap inside the paddock rather than as an aside.
Lia Block headlines the day. She is an American Rally Association competitor with road-course experience from her time in Williams Racing’s F1 Academy program, and she is the daughter of the late Ken Block, which carries its own weight in this crowd. Block runs demo drives both on the paved circuit and off-road in performance vehicles. Sunday is also the open day for general-public meet-and-greet windows, signing sessions on a first-come basis, one item per guest.
Vintage motorsport tends to lean elegiac on Memorial Day, and most of the cars on the card will not run again in public until next year.
The Friday qualifying crowd is gone, replaced by families. The Bay Area family weekend traffic peaks Sunday afternoon. Velocity priced its family bundles to land here: $479 for two adults and two children walk-up, $319 pre-sale, with parking included.
If you are choosing between Saturday and Sunday on a single-day budget, Saturday gets you Tsunoda and the marquee races. Sunday gets you Block, the auction conclusion, and the family-friendlier crowd. Either way, $199 walks you in for the full day.
After-Hours and Adjacent Events
Velocity is structured to deliver most of its highlights inside the gate, but a few evening and off-track programs are worth flagging.
Friday Night Meet
The Sung Kang and Larry Chen DRIFTER program is the public after-party of the weekend, included in any Friday GA ticket. Setup runs from late afternoon, the film preview anchors the evening, and signing windows continue through the meet.
Driver’s Club Saturday VIP Dinner
Bundled inside the $1,999 weekend Driver’s Club package. This is the premium hospitality dinner and it is a real multi-course event, not a glorified buffet. If you have done the Pebble Beach concours circuit and are looking for the closest Sonoma analog to a Quail Lodge dinner program, the Driver’s Club VIP dinner is the answer.
The Forum at Turn 1
Open all three days as a wine-tasting hospitality space at Turn 1’s outside, with wine and spirits flights, snacks, and indoor and outdoor lounge access. A Sunday Forum pass at $219 runs late afternoon into the closing race, which functions as a late-day social anchor rather than a strict after-party.
Camping at the track
Check-in opens Thursday May 28, checkout closes Monday June 1 at 11 a.m. Family campsites are $249 for the weekend, standard $399, premium $449. The camping community is the evening center of gravity for attendees who skipped hospitality. Most of the off-paddock conversation happens around the camp loop after dark.
Getting There and What to Bring
Sonoma Raceway is at 29355 Arnold Drive, Sonoma, CA 95476. Use Gate 1 as your main entrance.
From San Francisco, take Highway 101 north over the Golden Gate Bridge, then Highway 37 east, then Highway 121 north. The drive runs about 50 miles and 75 minutes in good traffic.
From the East Bay, take Interstate 80 to Highway 37 west and expect 60 to 90 minutes. From Sacramento, take Interstate 80 west to Highway 37 west and plan for 90 minutes.
Memorial Day weekend Bay Area traffic is unpredictable. Build in a buffer.
General-admission parking is free. Premium parking tiers (Valet, Preferred, and Car Corral for classics and exotics) are available for sale. Handicap parking includes complimentary ADA-accessible shuttles to the main entrance.
What to Bring (and What’s Not Allowed)
- Ear protection. This is a high-decibel event. Foam plugs are sold on site, but Loop Switch 2 adjustable ear plugs (20 to 26 dB SNR) bring more attenuation and reusability than the foam version. If you want music or a podcast between sessions, AirPods Pro 3 handle ambient noise with active cancellation during downtime, though dedicated plugs are still the right call when the F1 cars fire.
- A jacket. Sonoma’s elevation creates cold mornings. Afternoons run warm. Dress in layers.
- Closed-toed shoes. The paddock surface is gravel, hot asphalt, and oil-stained concrete in roughly equal measure.
- Sunscreen and a hat. Most spectator zones are exposed. A reef-safe SPF 50 face stick fits in a pocket and reapplies without runoff.
- Not allowed: outside food or beverages in the paddock, glass containers, drones, coolers in seating areas, and alcohol brought from off site.
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Pets are not permitted in the raceway except for service animals. Smoking is restricted to designated non-seating areas. Guests under 18 require an adult guardian.
Four Open Questions Going In
I will be in the paddock with press credentials all three days. The questions I came in with are these.
What does Tsunoda pick to drive on Saturday, and how aggressive does he get with the throttle on a chassis he has never been in.
Whether the Cars & Bids auction generates the in-person bidding energy it has promised, or whether the platform’s online roots show through.
How the drift demos work on a road course that was not engineered for them, especially Dai Yoshihara’s Friday session.
Whether the Sonoma paddock’s wider footprint changes the no-velvet-ropes dynamic in a way that scales for future years.
A recap will follow next week with photos and impressions from the ground. If there is a specific question about the event you want answered before then, leave a comment and I will track it down on site.
Pick Your Day
The 2026 Velocity Invitational is the Bay Area motorsport event of Memorial Day weekend. Three days, three headliners (Tsunoda, Block, Kang), a new venue at Sonoma Raceway, a Cars & Bids paddock auction, and Friday Night Meet programming that doubles as a public after-party. GA starts at $159 and includes paddock access, which is the whole pitch. The Sonoma Room Saturday is already sold out, so the demand signal is real. If you are picking one day, Friday is the value play. If you are picking the marquee, Saturday. If you are bringing a family, Sunday.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Velocity Invitational?
Velocity Invitational is a three-day motorsports and car-culture festival at Sonoma Raceway running May 29 to 31, 2026. The format combines vintage racing across multiple eras, modern hypercars, Formula DRIFT demos, a paddock auction in partnership with Cars & Bids, and accessible paddock walking included in general-admission tickets. Founder Jeff O’Neill runs the event through Velocity International.
Where is Velocity Invitational 2026 held?
Sonoma Raceway, 29355 Arnold Drive, Sonoma, CA 95476. Gate 1 is the main entrance, off Highways 37 and 121. The 2026 edition is the event’s first at Sonoma; prior years ran at Laguna Seca.
How much are tickets to Velocity Invitational 2026?
General admission is $159 Friday, $199 Saturday or Sunday, and $249 for the full weekend. Pre-sale rates run lower. Youth tickets are $5 for kids 15 and under accompanied by a paid adult. Hospitality packages range from $219 (Sunday Forum at Turn 1) to $1,999 (weekend Driver’s Club). Weekend camping ranges from $249 to $449.
Who is appearing at Velocity Invitational 2026?
The 2026 roster includes Formula 1 driver Yuki Tsunoda on Saturday, rally driver Lia Block on Sunday, actor and drifting enthusiast Sung Kang on Friday, Formula Drift champion Dai Yoshihara on Friday, and automotive photographer Larry Chen across the weekend.
Is Velocity Invitational family-friendly?
Yes. Weekend family bundles include two adults plus two children 15 and under starting at $419 pre-sale. The schedule includes family activities and accessible paddock walking. All kids must be accompanied by an adult with a paid GA ticket. Sunday tends to draw the most family-heavy crowd.
Can I drive at Velocity Invitational?
Driver entries for the 2026 racing card are closed. Vehicle display submissions for static paddock display are accepted through Velocity’s consideration portal. Ride-along experiences in performance vehicles, with professional drivers behind the wheel, are available as add-ons.
Where did Velocity Invitational move from?
Velocity Invitational ran at Laguna Seca in prior years. 2026 is the first edition at Sonoma Raceway. The move keeps the format intact but changes the paddock topology, the spectator sight lines, and the surrounding wine-country logistics.
How is Velocity Invitational different from Monterey Car Week or Goodwood?
Monterey Car Week is a multi-event calendar stretched across multiple venues with concours, auctions, and the Rolex Motorsport Reunion. Goodwood Revival is themed period pageantry on a private English estate. Velocity is a single-venue, three-day festival on an active road course with paddock access included in GA. Motor1 calls Velocity the “American Goodwood,” and Goodwood itself licenses the Velocity livestream as part of its own broadcast.
Tickets, schedule, and the full hospitality menu live at viavelocity.com/invitational. The 2026 Velocity Invitational runs May 29 to 31 at Sonoma Raceway.
Michael Kahn
Michael Kahn is the publisher of <em>The Weekly Driver,</em> serving as writer, photographer, and content creator. With a keen eye for storytelling and a passion for adventure, he specializes in uncovering the stories and experiences of automobile enthusiasts. Michael's work is inspired by his love for off-the-beaten-path road trips, global exploration, and the pursuit of exceptional culinary experiences, all captured through the lens of a world traveler and automotive enthusiast.
https://theweeklydriver.com