Monster Mile Tag

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After losing a left rear wheel in last Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover, Kyle Busch’s No. 18 team was handed a stiff penalty from NASCAR on Wednesday, which will leave Busch without his crew chief and two pit crew members for the next four races. Just 19 laps into the AAA 400 at Dover, Busch made his way down pit road for routine service under caution, but that’s when everything went wrong for his Joe Gibbs Racing team. Before any ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway, the regular season of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series is now halfway over. The 400-lap event on the one-mile concrete oval once again provided some of the best racing of the year, so without further ado, here are five of the top storylines leaving the Monster Mile. Jimmie Johnson Just Keeps Rewriting the Record Books Though Kyle Larson and Martin Truex, Jr. dominated the majority of the race at Dover, it was Johnson that came outRead More

By: Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DOVER, Del. – The man who once made his parents stop at Hardee’s because he thought it was Cale Yarborough’s race shop pulled even with his childhood hero in Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover International Speedway. Getting the jump on Kyle Larson on an overtime restart at the Monster Mile, Johnson crossed the overtime line on the backstretch moments before a multi-car wreck brought out the 15th caution of the race and froze the field with Johnson in the lead and aRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor In this race one year ago, Kyle Larson was in contention for his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win after leading 85 laps, but had to settle for second place after a late race battle with eventual race winner Matt Kenseth. With a win already under his belt in 2017, Larson headed into Dover looking for some redemption and the weekend sweep after handily winning Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race on the one-mile concrete oval. Starting the day in fifth place, Larson bided hisRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The NASCAR Xfinity Series Dash4Cash program has belonged to JR Motorsports this season, with the organization winning two of the first three races heading into Saturday’s OneMain Financial 200 at Dover, the final race in the program for the 2017 season. While Justin Allgaier had scored the two Dash4Cash wins for the team at Phoenix and Richmond, it was rookie William Byron that brought home the $100,000 bonus at the Monster Mile with his sixth-place finish. “Credit this race team,” said Byron. “Hopefully we canRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor Though the NASCAR Xfinity Series races have been dominated by Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regulars more often than not this season, rookie Cole Custer has been making some noise by finishing as the top Xfinity regular over the past two weeks. Custer’s seventh place finish at Charlotte last week ranked as the top among Xfinity Series regulars and with several of the heavy hitters from the Cup Series ineligible to race in Saturday’s race at Dover, Custer would be looking to repeat that performanceRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor After two weeks back home in Charlotte, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series hits the road again for a trip to Dover International Speedway for Sunday’s running of the AAA 400 Drive for Autism, marking the halfway point in the regular season. Dover began its life as an asphalt track back in 1969, but in 1995 the track was converted to concrete, making it one of only two on the circuit. As one of the two concrete tracks on the NASCAR schedule, the one mileRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Contributor Ahead of their 2017 race dates, Dover International Speedway has announced that they will be adding additional SAFER barriers to the one-mile concrete oval. The facility will gain approximately 1,800 feet of SAFER barriers, which will place the barriers along the outside walls on the frontstretch and backstretch, as those areas are currently unprotected. With the new SAFER barriers, the outside walls around the entire track will now be protected by the energy absorbing walls. “Continued improvements to our facility, particularly in the areas ofRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service DOVER, Del. – It was a Martin Truex Jr. blowout, a Jamie McMurray blow-up and a Jimmie Johnson “We blew it again.” Truex cruised to a decisive victory in Sunday’s Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover International Speedway, a race that pared the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field from 16 drivers to 12. Winning for a fourth time this season, a second time at Dover and the seventh time in his career, Truex was without peer after a pit road snafu on LapRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service If you don’t consider Martin Truex Jr. one of the favorites to win this year’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, you haven’t been paying attention to the first two races in the Chase. Truex won the Chase opener at Chicagoland Speedway and had perhaps the fastest car a week later at New Hampshire, though he dropped to seventh at the finish after a late restart. Now he comes to Dover, the track closest to his childhood home in Mayetta, N.J., full of confidence—and notRead More