SONOMA — Ricky Rudd won the inaugural NASCAR Cup race at Sonoma, so it’s only fitting that his mug was added to the track’s Wall of Fame on Friday morning.

When Rudd won way back in 1989, the current Infineon Raceway was called Sears Point. He finished in the Top 5 over the next four years and has logged 10 Top 5s and 11 Top 10s to lead all drivers at the 10-turn, 1.99-mile road course. He also won in 2002, which was his most recent Cup victory.

“I’m really honored and proud to be chosen for the Wall of Fame,” Rudd said.

“It’s wonderful to be a part of the history of the Cup racing out at Infineon, and I’m just proud of the fact that we’ve had some accomplishments out there that they see worthy enough to place me on their Wall of Fame. We’ll have a copy of this on our fireplace to look at every day.

“I think the earlier days of Infineon a lot of the success that drivers had there was thanks to traditional road racing techniques to get around the race track. Back when I began racing at Infineon, there was only a handful of guys that you really had to focus on and deal with up at the front of the pack, because a lot of the others couldn’t adapt to driving cars the way we could.”

Well, there are definitely more road course warriors ready to go for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350, and Rudd is one of them. The veteran pilots the No. 88 Snickers Ford for Robert Yates Racing and stands 33rd in the points chase.

Infineon and Watkins Glen — the Nextel Cup Series’ lone road course stops — are two of Rudd’s favorite tracks. He credits his success on the right turns to his go-karting days on tracks similar to Infineon, though never on the west coast. He spent many hours at Road America and VIR, which hooked him into racing.

Friday, Rudd qualified 28th with a time of 78.657 seconds and speed of 91.079 mph. He was disappointed and said it was the slowest lap he’d run all day.

“I think we were like 19th in practice and knew we needed to be better,” Rudd said. “We talked about it and sometimes I think we outthink ourselves a little bit and made an air-pressure change. That hurt us over a half-second from what we ran in practice. We’re not real pleased with that, but it’s been a good day though. The Wall of Fame ceremony was a pretty cool deal.”

Other than himself, of course, Rudd has a few other ringers in mind who could perform well on Sunday. Boris Said and Ron Fellows top his favorites and both race part-time in the Cup Series. Since neither has much or any experience in the Car of Tomorrow, it will be a hindrance.

But since Sunday is the COT’s first stop on a road course, everyone will be going through growing pains.

“I’d be a little apprehensive about making predictions based on that because of the Car of Tomorrow, which is a different driving race car than what we’re used to running out there,” Rudd said. “It’s really getting back to, you’ve got to look at the Hendrick camp. They’ve sort of dominated the Car of Tomorrow events, so you’d have to definitely put that group in a list of favorites.”

Hendrick has won 10 of the season’s 15 races, including five of the six COT stops. Sonoma’s defending champion, Jeff Gordon, has four wins this season, including two in the COT. His teammate Jimmie Johnson has the same stats this season — but both are expected to start in the back of the field because their cars failed Friday’s initial inspection.

“Fuel strategy and all kind of things play into mind there and it’s a tough race track,” Rudd added. “It’s a very physical race track, but I’d be scared to death to try to pick a favorite for you.”

Yates Racing, just like every non-HMS team, has had its fair share of difficulty with the COT partly due to its lack of testing. Rudd spent two days at VIR a couple of weeks ago and said it went “OK” but didn’t go as well as he hoped and needed. VIR and Infineon are very different tracks with several altitude changes being factors in Sonoma.

“The speeds looked good (at VIR), but the big thing at Infineon is, ‘Will the car stay good?’ And that’s been something we’ve been struggling with on those cars,” Rudd said.

“We cut through the (S-shaped curves) and the cars feel very similar. The Car of Tomorrow doesn’t like a track that has a high bank or a lot of bumps in it, especially on a high bank.

“That presents the most problem because one of the bigger differences is that you’re limited to your suspension travel because of that front valance on these Car of Tomorrows with the splitter.

“You have a little bit less than I think half of the normal suspension travel that we would normally get, so bumps and banking tend to aggravate that, but more of the banking than the bumps.”

Rudd thinks he’ll do well come Sunday, but isn’t willing to put any money on it.

Save Mart Supermarkets chairman and CEO Bob Piccinini was also added to the Wall of Fame for his involvement with the Cup race since 1992.

“The truth is, if you hang out long enough, they have to either kick you out or give you an award,” Piccinini said.