Late class points leader Greg Thornton (1982 Lotus 91/5) took the overall victory today at Sonoma Raceway to win the title fight against rival Cal Meeker (1979 Tyrrell 009), with whom he had been battling all season. Ahead by just 13 points into this weekend, Thornton was able to extend his lead by a further three points today, bringing a mathematical end to season.

"The car's been brilliant. I hit the curb hard on lap 3 and I was very, very concerned, picked up a little vibration. I wasn’t sure if I had a tire going or just a weight fell off…Normally I get faster as the tires come on and then what we did, the boys just told me 'you've got to sit around about the 29's, so we just sat at 29's… We were very lucky because I thought I was losing a tire." Thornton took fastest lap of the race with a 1:29.664s on lap 9.

Meeker was complimentary of his competition after today's race: "We started second and finished second, I thought that was pretty much how it was going to play out… Bud Moeller gave me a pretty good run and was really good today… There's no rest on this track and I'm a little bit new to it. A fun run… It was a good, close championship and [Greg] deserves it, he's raced perfectly all year long."

Bud Moeller took third in his recently acquired 1982 Williams FW08/01, while Nicholas Colyvas (1976 Shadow DN5), Gray Gregory (1976 March 761) and Charles Warner (1979 Shadow DN9) rounded out the top six finishers. The non-ground effect class championship leaders were not classified as Ron Maydon (1977 LEC CRP1) retired early after an earplug came loose and Chris Locke's 1976 Lotus 77 developed a misfire just short of the 11 lap minimum distance.