Track: Dover Motor Speedway
Location: Dover, Delaware
Track length: 1 mile
When: Sunday, 2 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $11,055,250
Race distance: 400 laps | 400 miles
Stages: 120 | 250 | 400
Defending winner: Denny Hamlin, April 2024
Starting lineup: Chase Elliott to lead field to green Sunday
RELATED: How to watch on TNT Sports, truTV
Dover marks return to traditional tracks, sets stage for who title favorites will be
If you made it past the last month and still find yourself above the Cup Series playoff cutline, congratulations. You just survived a stretch of races that included two road courses, a street course, a 2.5-mile triangle and a 1.5-mile superspeedway. From Mexico to Sonoma, the playoff picture and the perennial weekly contenders fluctuated dramatically. Instead of Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson or Christopher Bell pacing the field, Trackhouse Racing’s Shane van Gisbergen blitzed the field, winning three races across the last five weeks (Mexico, Chicago, Sonoma). SVG ballooned his playoff points to 17 and will be in good shape come Labor Day weekend to start the postseason. He can also focus on his steady improvement on the ovals without the added stress of pointing or winning his way into the 16-driver playoff grid.
The two other winners, Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliott, scored their first wins of 2025 at Pocono and Atlanta, respectively. The No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports driver continues his consistent and impressive campaign with 20 consecutive top-20 finishes entering Dover, and he’s placed fifth or better in four of the last five events.
RELATED: Cup standings | Full 2025 schedule
At the playoff cutline, Kyle Busch stayed within striking distance of the top 16 after stringing together top 10s at Chicago and Sonoma. He’s also been good at Dover with back-to-back poles in 2023 and 2024, with a fourth-place run in the most recent edition in Delaware.
While Busch hasn’t won since Gateway in 2023, a fourth Miles the Monster trophy would certainly be meaningful for the two-time Cup titleholder.
“There’s definitely some cool trophies that are out there, Dover being one of those with the cool Monster trophy that you get,” Busch said Saturday at track. “That’s a special piece. I always looked up to that trophy. I was able to win a couple of Truck ones, a couple of Xfinity ones, but then finally was able to capture the big one with a Sunday win for my first time. They’re all special and they all mean a lot, but this place is very tough, especially in that era going up against Jimmie Johnson. It was really hard to get those trophies as he was hoarding them all.”
The drivers that dominated the early portion of the season have gone quiet so far this summer.
Daytona 500 winner William Byron still holds the regular season points lead, but it has shrunk dramatically with finishes of 27th or worse in four of the last six races. His teammate Elliott continues to gain and sits just 14 marks back of the No. 24 with six races to go. Then, there’s the trio of three-time winners in Hamlin, Bell and Larson who have had a less-than-stellar last few weeks. The most recent winner among the bunch was Hamlin at Michigan in early June and you have to go back to Kansas in May to find Larson’s most recent triumph.
It’s interesting how close these three have trended with each other. Larson has finished outside the top 10 in four of the last five races (no top fives since Michigan), Bell owns just one top 10 in the last four races and Hamlin has either finished fourth or better or 20th or worse since Nashville.
It sets up quite the dynamic as the three will try to separate themselves as the Cup Series title favorite when the playoffs begin with the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. All three should be in play for strong Dover runs and then the Brickyard 400 looms the following week, where Larson won last year with Bell placing fourth. Hamlin led 21 laps in that race before crashing during an overtime restart.
Only one road course (Watkins Glen) and one superspeedway (Daytona) remain before the postseason begins. Either Hamlin, Bell and Larson will regain their status as the cream of the crop this year or drivers continuing their stride, like Elliott, will emerge as the new favorite to hoist the Bill France Cup in November.
MORE: Saturday sessions washed out due to rain
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Dover is anything but straightforward, especially when it comes to race strategy at the banked facility.
As crew chief of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Tyler Allen believes the uniqueness of the “Monster Mile” comes in the form of the concrete that makes up the track.
“In a lot of ways, it’s the surface,” Allen told NASCAR.com. “The track surface is really sensitive to sun, heat, rubber. With a new tire combination, you never know quite what you’re going to get, if the rubber is going to go down or not.”
Travis Mack, crew chief of John Hunter Nemechek‘s No. 42 Legacy Motor Club Toyota, also believes that Dover, while not a road course, brings plenty of variables to the table, especially when it comes to pitting.
“There’s always that strategy play here,” Mack told NASCAR.com “There’s those guys that risk it to run long, and then there’s the guys that pitted more optimal halfway or short of halfway and make up track position that way. So, there’s a lot of different scenarios here that could play out, and it makes it fun and exciting.”
Allen echoed the pit road sentiment while also mentioning how its slender nature only adds to the complexity.
MORE: NASCAR In-Season Challenge hub | Inside the tracks of In-Season Challenge
“It’s a very tricky pit road,” Allen said. “It’s fairly narrow. You’ve got the bends to deal with. There’s about 10 openings, so you want to qualify in the top 10 to have at least an opening in, but you really have to manage your lights, and green-flag stops are likely, and people make mistakes here, so it’s really tricky to weigh out the risk of pitting and being a lap down if the caution comes out, or running long and trying to catch a caution.”
Gibbs and Nemechek, in addition to jockeying for a potential playoff berth, will aim to conquer their respective Round 4 In-Season Challenge matchup; the sixth-seeded Gibbs will battle 23rd-seeded Tyler Reddick, while the 12th-seeded Nemechek will look to end 32nd-seeded Ty Dillon‘s Cinderella run.
“We’re focused on trying to finish the race as best we can, you know, get up there and compete,” Mack added. “But we’re also watching that 10 car. We’ll be watching the 10 this weekend. As we have through all the rounds, you know, we’ve kind of had that guy highlighted on the screen, just trying to pay attention to their race as well. And it’ll probably come down to a point to where we’re trying to cover each other, maybe on pitch strategy, or just to focus on being ahead of them at the end of the race.”
— John Crane
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday’s race
History tells us …
The concrete kings will dominate. Hamlin took the checkered flag in the Bristol spring race and Dover last season, followed by Larson dominating the Bristol Night Race and then outclassing the field earlier this year at the “World’s Fastest Half Mile.” According to NASCAR Insights, Hamlin ranks top five in every metric at a concrete track this year (speed, long run, passing, defense, restarts) and tops in speed and defense.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
COLE CUSTER. It may be outlandish to pin Custer as one to watch, but let’s not forget when he shocked the NASCAR industry with his thrilling Kentucky win in July 2020 for his first and lone Cup triumph so far. It likely won’t happen this Sunday, but crazier thing have happened on the circuit and Custer’s numbers are quite good at the “Monster Mile.” The No. 41 Haas Factory Team driver owns a pair of top 10s in four Cup starts at Dover and hasn’t finished worse than 15th in any of those attempts.
MORE: Lineup advice in Fantasy Fastlane
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• NASCAR at Dover: Key info, practice reports and more from doubleheader weekend | Read more
• See you down the road: NASCAR puts pause on Chicago Street Race for 2026, open to future return | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Your hub for everything related to the 32-driver showdown | Read more
• Racing Insights: Where your favorite driver is projected to finish Sunday | Read more
• Field of 16: Can Bowman lock all four Hendrick cars into playoffs? | Read more
• Turning Point to Dover: Ty Dillon continuing to do the improbable | Read more
• At-track photos: Scenes, sights from the Blue Hen State | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind with full-race Dover replays from the vault | Watch now
• Paint Scheme Preview: Cup runneth Dover — liveries for this weekend | View gallery
• Power Rankings: Will post-double doldrums finally end for Larson on Sunday? | This week’s Top 20
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