2026 Dover: Race Focus

As Dover prepares to host its first All-Star Race ever, let’s examine what I think is the most critical element of the race. Building Speed’s 2026 Dover race focus is the track itself.

2026 Dover All-Star Race Format

The format is a focus of criticism of this race because everyone gets to start and run at least the first two stage. I suspect the motivation for that choice was so that every Dover fan gets a chance to see their favorite driver, at least for part of the time.

A number of crew chiefs said this week that their priority is learning more about the short-track package, especially with Nashville coming up at the end of the month. But the prize for winning the All-Star Race is a cool million dollars. Interestingly, the total purse for the All-Star Race is only $3,093,000. Compare that to the standard purse of around $11 million.

This is the first time since 1969 that Dover Motor Speedway has not hosted a NASCAR Cup Series points race. The track went from two races to one in 2021, a great disappointment to those of us who live in the northeast and middle Atlantic, especially given the loss of races at Pocono and New Hampshire. Dover announced already that they will have a race in 2027, but the track’s future in the Cup Series after that is TBD.

Pundits often cite attendance as the main reason for the track’s questionable future, but I would argue — especially after walking the track here — that the facility’s condition might be an even larger question. That’s why the track itself is the 2026 Dover Race Focus.

Dover has ‘Character’

When I’m writing fiction, “character” is the word I use to describe someone I like, or feel sympathy for, but one whose weaknesses are on display. You might use ‘character’ to reference wrinkles, quirky clothing, or even mental (or physical) scars.

Dover is one of the few all-concrete tracks in NASCAR. Nashville Superspeedway, which is the next race after next week’s Coca-Cola 600, is also all-concrete. Concrete races differently than asphalt. Cars lay down rubber while racing and pick it up again during cautions. If you don’t change tires, you can find yourself on a restart with gobs of rubber stuck to your tires.

Dover is a short (1 mile), high-banked (24 degrees) track. The front and backstretch feature 9-degree banking The track is mostly symmetrical if viewed from above; however, a really important feature is that the backstretch is at a higher elevation that the frontstretch. That means you’re going uphill going into Turn 2 and downhill coming out of Turn 3. Our Qualifying Challenge this week is getting to pit road. That remains a challenge if we have green-flag pit stops.

However, as evidenced in yesterday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Race and in the Truck Race Friday, there are usually enough incidents that most pit stops, if not all, will be under yellow.

The pit road is also tight. It’s 47 feet wide, with the stalls themselves measuring about 34 feet in length by 16 feet wide. That makes for one of the smallest widths between the pit stalls and the outside pit wall.

Dover’s Track Surface

The track applied resin through the entire 58-foot-width of all four turns. It’s hard to see where the resin starts when you’re close to it, but if you step back, you can see the line where it starts and ends much more clearly. The picture below shows Friday morning, before any on-track action.

In the past, resin was used only in part of a turn (see, for example, Bristol) rather than along the track’s entire width. The only other place I can recall a full-width application is Nashville Superspeedway.

The black in the photo foreground, incidentally, is the asphalt apron. I noticed during my track walk that there are some very sharp changes of angle between the apron and the track. Denny Hamlin found that out during qualifying, spinning as he entered the track for his warm-up lap. Hamlin still won the pole; however, such a mistake during the race could doom one’s chances of a good finish.

The track surface is very (very, very) unevenly worn. Large portions of the track look like virgin sidewalk. A few places are a little more worn. Cracks are not infrequent. They’re patched with what I believe is a silicone-based caulk.

A Concrete Mystery

In other places — especially the turns — the cement is worn away to a much greater degree, exposing the aggregate. In some of the really worn spots, the aggregate exhibits grooves, as shown in the photo below.

It looks like the stones are striped, right? But I bent down to check them out, and the black parts of the stones are actually raised. This must be due to the way the concrete was processed because it’s so uniform. The stripes are all parallel to the direction of travel. These areas are predominantly in the turns, but there are also some regions near the walls.

Brad Keselowski told me that car placement is absolutely critical at Dover precisely because the surface is so inhomogeneous.

“Car placement at Dover is critical, always has been, and it’s dynamic,” Keselowski said. “Cars lay rubber into those different grooves, the preferred lane changes, and it’s just what the challenge is for the drivers, and those that master it are successful.”

Look for those drivers good at sensing grip from inside the car to do really well, especially since the temperature today will be 10-15 degrees F hotter than practice on Friday. This favors veteran drives and junior phenoms.

Typical Dover Race Pace

Dover is called ‘self-cleaning’ because cars slide down to the apron when they hit something. And when they hit something, its rarely just one thing.

The last four races at Dover (the four Gen-7 races), have had four, five, six and seven DNFs, for an average of 5.5 DNFs per year. Those DNFs happened over the course of 1607 miles. Only the most recent race went into overtime.

Dover is also a hard place to stay on the lead lap. The most drivers to finish on the lead lap according to the track, is 21. That’s happened two times, most recently the fall race in 2020.

While the All-Star Race doesn’t count for season standings, I’ll note that Brad Keselowski, Chris Buescher, Ryan Preece, Chase Elliott and points leader Tyler Reddick are the only five drivers to have finished all twelve races so far on the lead lap. Only Reddick and Preece have completed all the laps this season.

That’s the 2026 Dover Race Focus, along with a few other pointers for you to keep in mind as you watch the race. Dover hosts its first All-Star Race today at 1pm ET. Coverage is on FS1, MRN radio and SiriusXM satellite radio.