Dover Motor Speedway might be a short track, but it’s got big banking. 24 degrees in the turns, to be precise. That means, like the similarly banked Bristol, NASCAR will not be running the short track package.
It’s actually a lot like Bristol. Both are concrete tracks with similar degrees of banking. But while Bristol is a mile-and-a-half bullring, Dover is a mile-long beast that tests man and machine for hours. It will do so for 400 laps in Sunday’s Wurth 400, airing at 2 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Dover might be physically impressive, but the short track racing has been unimpressive in the Next Gen era, with Dover as no exception, for the most part, as drivers have struggled to pass. The biggest exception came earlier this year at Bristol when the intermediate package combined with excessive tire wear set a new record for passing on the track.
Odds via BetMGM
+375 – Kyle Larson
+650 – Martin Truex
+700 – Ross Chastain
+800 – Denny Hamlin
+800 – William Byron
+1100 – Chase Elliott
+1400 – Christopher Bell
+1400 – Ty Gibbs
+1600 – Ryan Blaney
+1600 – Alex Bowman
A repeat might shake up the racing just as much as Bristol. But one driver who likes Dover just as-is must be hometown hero Martin Truex. There’s no New Jersey racetrack for the driver, so Dover’s the next best thing.
“I view Dover as my home track, it’s closest to home,” Truex explained. “If you could drive across the bay, it would be really close. It’s close to home, for sure.”
He’s made the most of it, having the most wins of any active driver at the track with four. As the series’ elder statesman, he is able to on his experience everywhere, but Dover especially seems to reward it.
“Certainly, experience is important there, it’s a difficult place,” Truex said. “It’s concrete and is a lot different than what we do most other weeks. It seems to always be a place where you are guessing what the track is going to do on Sunday.
“I think the veterans probably understand the place more than many because we’ve seen it do different things over the years. We’ve had good cars and a good team there and have been fortunate to have a lot of good runs at Dover.”
Besides Truex, Kyle Busch, with three, and Chase Elliott, with two, are the only other multi-time winners in the full-time field. But count the part-time field and that number rockets up to 11. The driver in Legacy Motorsport’s No. 84 Toyota this weekend has plenty of pedigree at the track, and Jimmie Johnson has to have high expectations heading into this race.
At this point, those high expectations might not be winning so much as contending. In five starts over the last two years, Johnson has never finished better than 28th, explaining at Texas Motor Speedway that the Next Gen car drives very differently than anything he’s used to. Still, with a part-time schedule this year, Johnson is embracing the challenge and enjoying coupling the sport he’s defined with spending time with his family, as he explained on CupScene’s Speed Talk Live podcast this week.
His Legacy Motorsports team has also had a shakeup. After a hard crash at Talladega, Erik Jones is out of the car to recover from a compression fracture. Truck Series standout Corey Heim will drive the No. 43 car until Jones recovers.
While the Toyotas have been fast on the short tracks this season, it was a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in the form of William Byron who won the most recent race at Martinsville.
But the marque with the motivation is Ford. The Blue Ovals have yet to go to victory lane this season. Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano have run up front at short tracks, with Logano finishing second at Richmond and leading almost all of Stage 2 at Martinsville in a much-needed improvement for that No. 22 crew. Neither Blaney nor Logano have won at Dover, so both are hunting for their first wins both there and this season.
In fact, only one Ford driver in the field has ever won at Dover in the Cup Series, and that’s Brad Keselowski. After a breakthrough year for his RFK Racing team last year, with Michael McDowell scoring three wins, the team has struggled to come into its own with the Dark Horse Mustang.
Practice will be aired on FS1 at 10:30 a.m. ET followed by qualifying at 11:20.
Dover can ‘bite’ for Xfinity Series drivers
To win at Dover in the Xfinity Series requires taming the concrete. Saturday’s BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway, broadcast at 1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will be no exception, with 200 brutal laps that require constant patience and precision to get the win.
“When you’re going to Dover, you have to be really smart about different situations that happen and being in traffic. The key is knowing when to be aggressive and when not to be aggressive, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer explained.
“You can get yourself into a really bad bind getting into traffic or trying to pass people when you really shouldn’t. You can also have somebody on your bumper trying to pass you, and then you just get turned. This track can come out and bite you pretty fast if you’re not smart. The key to success at Dover is patience and knowing when to be aggressive and when to play it safe. That’s the key to making it to victory lane.”
Custer won at Dover in 2019. Besides him, just two other drivers in the field have won at the track: Justin Allgaier and last year’s winner Ryan Truex.
For Truex, last season was his first-ever Xfinity Series win, made even sweeter when his brother Martin won the next day for a family sweep.
“The whole weekend was pretty special last year. For Ryan (Truex) to finally get that first Xfinity win out of the way was really cool – at our home track and probably one of my favorite tracks was really neat,” older brother Martin explained.
Martin says he’s ready to take a shot at doing it again.
Adding some extra motivation, the Dash 4 Cash continues at Bristol, with a $100,000 bonus to the highest-finishing eligible driver. At Talladega, Ryan Sieg won the money for finishing 17th after each of the contenders ran into problems, so the battle could be anywhere in the field.
The Dash 4 Cash contenders at Dover, based on their finishes at Talladega, are Jesse Love, Riley Herbst, Anthony Alfredo, and Ryan Sieg.
“Dover is such a difficult track to navigate, but for a driver, it can be fun,” contender Riley Herbst explained. “You have to stay out of trouble in order to be there at the end.
“Honestly, it’s about being patient, which I’ve struggled with in the past. It’s a good skill to learn at these difficult tracks because you have to know when to pass and when not to. You can’t be too aggressive or it’ll bite you. That’s a lesson that I’ve had to learn in my career, but I’ve had good people behind me to help me grow as a driver and teach me to take it lap by lap. I’m excited to head to Dover and not only race for a win, but also that Dash 4 Cash bonus check.”
Practice will be televised from 3:05 p.m. ET on Friday on FS1, followed by qualifying.
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