After 500 miles of the biggest and fastest track in stock car racing last weekend in Talladega, another dangerous racetrack awaits drivers of the NASCAR Cup Series. This time, it’s an all-out monster—a mile-long, high-banked concrete behemoth that punks equipment and loves nothing more than to chew on car and driver alike.
The Monster Mile heads to the Duramax Dryden 400 at Dover Motor Speedway for the 11th race of the NASCAR Cup Series 2022 season. One of the most notorious tracks on the schedule, Dover has long been known as a physically and mentally taxing racetrack. With nine degrees of banking on the straightway and 24 degrees in the turn, Dover puts a driver on the sidelines after laps, as one mistake could mean satisfying Miles the Monster’s appetite for carnage.
How to Watch the NASCAR Cup Series in Dover?
Date: Sunday, May 1
location: Dover Motor Speedway — Dover, Delaware
time: 3 p.m. ET
TV: FS1
Stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
what to watch
- Now with 10 races in the books, many are starting to see the winning totals after Ross Chastain became the season’s second repeat winner at Talladega last week. Lesser heralded regular season championship point standings have been where Chase Elliott began to make a difference in the competition.
Elliott currently leads the 21-point standings over Ryan Blaney, a gap he made through the early part of the season with an exceptional level of consistency. Through 10 races, Elliott has seven Top 10 finishes, only one finish worse than 14th, and no finish outside the Top 15 since Fontana in February.
However, what is missing for the 2020 Cup Series champions is a win. Elliott is currently the only Hendricks Motorsports driver not to visit Victory Lane this season, and has not won a Cup race at Road America since last July. Dover presents a good opportunity for Elliott to score his first win of 2022, as he previously won at The Monster Mile in the fall of 2018.
- Three of the four Hendricks drivers who won this season underscore one of Dover’s key trends. Dating back to 2013, Dover’s Victory Lane has been dominated by three different race teams, Hendricks Motorsports leads with seven victories, which Gibbs Racing has won five times, and Stewart-Haas Racing has four victories. Huh.
Given this, Dover presents a major litmus test of how much the Next Gen Car has changed the competitive balance of the Cup Series. While Hendricks Motorsports leads all teams this season with four wins, the traditional pecking order at the front of the field has been disrupted by upstart Trackhouse Racing, which last week beat Joe Gibbs Racing to the second most of any team this season. Tied for victory. Team Penske and Stewart-Haas have also toured Victory Lane, while organizations such as Richard Childress Racing, RFK Racing and 23XI Racing have fought for victory.
- As mentioned earlier, Chase Elliott will be looking to enter the winning column for the first time this season. But he is not the only contender still looking for his first win of the season.
Ryan Blaney, who is currently second in the standings, joins Elliott in the list of notable people who have won one race so far this season. That list includes several Cup legends such as Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., and Kevin Harvick. Tyler Reddick, who has already missed out on his maiden Cup win in several heartbreakers this year, also has yet to score a win. And out of 16 different drivers who won races last season, 11 still haven’t secured their first win of 2022.
While drivers who have won at Dover in the past tend to win again there, there is precedent to suggest that the track may serve as a site for some drivers to return to the winner’s circle. The last driver to snap a winless streak at Dover was Kyle Larson, ending a more than two-year-long winless streak with a win in 2019. Dover last saw a first-time winner in the spring of 2007, when Martin Truex Jr. claimed his first cup win.
choose to win
(Odds via Caesar Sportsbook)
Alex Bowman (+1000): The thing to remember about Dover is that because it has a solid surface, the track generally does not age dramatically or change characteristics from year to year. So, in theory, drivers who get a feel for Dover and the teams that hit the setup at Dover struggle to win at this track year after year – as demonstrated by Jimmy Johnson on 12 Times at This Track. Proof of winning.
Prior to joining Hendricks Motorsports full-time, Alex Bowman always displayed a feeling for Dover. And since 2019, Bowman has taken three top-five spots at Dover with his win at this race last year. While the next gen car changes things up with regards to the teams setup and figuring out what makes The Monster Mile tick, chances are good that Alex Bowman can pull off back-to-back victories on this track.
