Editor’s note: Joey Logano became the 34th driver to make 600 Cup Series starts when the green flag dropped Sunday at Dover.
On the eve of becoming the youngest driver to make his 600th Cup start, Joey Logano somehow has emerged as the wise old man of NASCAR’s premier series.
Logano, a seasoned 35 years old, is a far cry from the wide-eyed and understandably overwhelmed teenager who made his first Daytona 500 start in 2009.
The youngest driver in the history of NASCAR’s biggest race was pitted against experienced stars who were more than twice his age. Bully tactics and intimidation greeted Logano at virtually every turn of his early years in Cup.
The rookie also was thrust into the untenable position of pretending to be something he wasn’t while trying to fill the shoes of legendary firebrand Tony Stewart.
Imagine being barely old enough to vote, much less shoulder a mortgage, and being tabbed as the corporate spokesman for a home improvement chain that markets to families.
In an amusing twist, Logano now fills that role perfectly as a happily married father of three.
After a rough start to his NASCAR career of trying to meet others’ expectations despite unrealistic circumstances, he shook loose from the chains of impostor syndrome long ago. He loves his family, cars and competing for wins with the verve of a madman whenever he dons a helmet.
“Those are the things that make Joey Logano who he is,” he said.
He never has sounded more confident of his place in the world, and it’s because he is comfortable in his own skin in a way that was impossible for an 18-year-old still trying to figure out his own personality while also navigating a major-league sport.
Yes, three Cup championships and a rock-solid ride with Team Penske helps in feeling more secure.
But when asked recently about what’s most important for building a driver’s brand, Logano skipped the part about being enormously successful. He instead offered sage and simple advice.
“The No. 1 most important thing is being authentic to your brand,” he said. “Be who you are. When someone is being fake, it’s so obvious. You can pick them out so easy. You know when someone is not being who they are. Being yourself is the most important thing.”
The words came from experience. They were spoken with the authority of a true elder statesman.
Maybe it’s the role Logano was always meant to play.
Joey Logano will hit another milestone this weekend at Dover Motor Speedway, becoming the 34th driver in NASCAR history to reach 600 Cup Series starts.
It was nearly all for naught.
Prior to hitting a national series track, Randy LaJoie coined Logano the “greatest thing since sliced bread” … quite a moniker to live up to. Immediate success in the Xfinity Series – winning in his third career start – at a ripe age of 18, opened the eyes of many, including his then-team owner Joe Gibbs. When Tony Stewart, then a two-time Cup champion, departed Joe Gibbs Racing to co-create Stewart-Haas Racing, the team tabbed Logano as the new driver of the No. 20 Toyota, slotted into NASCAR’s highest level at just 19 years old.
“I didn’t feel the pressure that much at the time, I think, because I was young,” Logano told NASCAR.com ahead of career start No. 600. “I didn’t have any responsibilities either; I was a kid. I didn’t have to support my family. I had a ridiculous amount of confidence for no reason at all. When I first started out, I drank all my Kool-Aid. All of the hype that was around me before I came in, I made the mistake of believing that I was going to be the man.”
Logano recalled having commercials featuring him that aired during Cup Series races even before he strapped into an Xfinity car. It was a big deal that he was getting his shot, and he believed every bit of it. In retrospect, he wished he hadn’t had so much attention, but “when you’re 18, you don’t know any better.”
Before transitioning to Cup, Logano made a trio of premier series starts in 2008, splitting time between JGR and Hall of Fame Racing. He unloaded off the hauler with immediate speed for his debut at Richmond Raceway, but Mother Nature washed away his chances of qualifying for the show. His much-anticipated debut was put on hold for another week, coming at his home race track in New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
In those three 2008 starts, Logano had a best finish of 32nd, finishing multiple laps down in each of them. That was the proverbial wake-up call.
“I remember that was the humble pie,” Logano stated. “We went to Richmond to practice and were third on the board. We were fast, and I’m like, ‘sheesh, I can do this. I’m going to win immediately in the Cup Series too, look at this.’ Then, we went to Loudon and I finished three laps down, and it was a miserable experience.
“I remember seeing the cars that I used to make fun of because they were the slowest cars on the race track all the time, and they were laying black marks off the corner. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got a lot to learn here.’ At that point, I got pretty nervous that this might not go the way I was hoping it was going to go.”
Logano’s first full-time foray at the Cup level was a negligible experience. Mother Nature was on his side in his return visit to New Hampshire, however, helping him score the upset victory as the No. 20 team’s crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, left him out with a storm emerging and eventually ending the race under caution with him in the lead. Logano was the Sunoco Rookie of the Year, tallying three top-five and seven top-10 finishes with a 20th-place finish in the championship standings. The next three seasons saw incremental improvements — including one more win in 2012 — but some dips as well, and Gibbs elected to move on from him at the end of that year.
Getting thrown to the wolves at an early age toughened Logano up. He acknowledges that the humiliation of losing his ride to Cup champion Matt Kenseth prompted him to change course. Otherwise, he thought, his career would be over before it fully began, despite winning frequently in the Xfinity Series and routinely holding off some Cup drivers.
“I think that’s what saved my career on one end of it because I could win on Saturday and it confused the hell out of everybody, and me too, on why I can win on Saturday quite a few times,” Logano noted. “We had a season (2012) where I won nearly half of the races that I was in, but I couldn’t run top 15 in a Cup car.
“Looking back at it, everything has to be put in the right places, and I wasn’t a smart enough racer back then as to how to put the right people in the right place or how to handle certain situations. I didn’t know what was off. I knew something was off because we sucked.”
Logan Riely | Getty Images
Brad Keselowski became Logano’s savior. During his 2012 championship-winning season, Keselowski reached out to Roger Penske to give his thoughts on who should take over the troubled No. 22 ride. In previous years, driver Kurt Busch and team management didn’t see eye-to-eye, leading to AJ Allmendinger taking over the car in 2012. Midway through the season, Allmendinger failed a random drug test and NASCAR indefinitely suspended him. Sam Hornish Jr. filled in the rest of the season, though Penske wanted to build its future with Logano.
Penske legend and NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace disagreed with the signing. But Logano was out to prove to his naysayers that he wasn’t a bust.
Logano won from the pole at Michigan International Speedway in 2013 before posting monster numbers through 2014 and 2015, making the inaugural Championship 4 and accumulating 11 wins over the two seasons. The once prodigy proved his legitimacy.
“When I got here to Penske, it was a fresh start,” Logano added. “They needed a fresh start. They needed somebody that was just going to not get in any trouble. Todd [Gordon, crew chief] was a great match for me at the time. Todd acted as a father figure in a lot of ways and helped guide me along, and that’s what helped put us in a good position.
“2014 is probably when we started to reach that point. 2015 solidified it. We’ve been a threat to win the championship from then on, in different ways, but I would say we have our own way of doing it and it is very different from everybody. I like that. I pride myself on being different from other people.”
Fast forward a decade, and Logano is part of a small list of 10 drivers to win three Cup Series championships. The first title came in 2018, when he dubbed it “the big three and me” as he upset Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. He entered rarified air in 2022, becoming a multi-time champion. The No. 22 team followed that up last year, winning its third title in seven seasons to cement his legend status.
Potential fulfilled — though Logano still isn’t satisfied, feeling like he should have even more checkered flags.
“To me, you can never carve the future and know what your own future is going to look like,” Logano stated. “Did I expect when I was 18 years old when I first started to win three championships? Absolutely, probably win more than that. Did I expect to win a championship after 2010 or 2011? No, not at all.
Logano won his first of three Cup titles with crew chief Todd Gordon. (Brian Lawdermilk | Getty Images)
“It’s kind of like God gives you things that you don’t know you need, but you need them in retrospect. In the trenches, you don’t realize it. I know this doesn’t relate to everybody because it’s like, ‘OK, you’re driving Cup cars, big deal, it’s not that bad.’ And I get that, but at the same time – if you don’t minimize what you’re actually doing and think about that – I needed every lesson that came my way, and there are lessons that are still coming.”
Those tutorials began when Logano was a teenager. He still applies lessons learned some 17 years later, with nearly half of his life being in the national spotlight.
“The two things (in NASCAR) that are the most amount of pressure that you can possibly put on yourself is trying to race for a championship or trying to keep your job,” Logano noted. “The road map to the two are the same, in a way, because it’s either your career is going to be over, or you have the opportunity to reach the ultimate goal. Both are massive amounts of pressure and I’ve been in that position so many times now that I know how to do that. I think back then helped me.”
Admittedly, Logano doesn’t think much about his legacy. He pays more attention to the health of the sport and how it grows during his stint. However, with his 600th start, he’s beginning to realize the significance of such an achievement.
“Considering I wasn’t going to make it to 150, 600 feels pretty good,” Logano said. “You don’t remember most of them. I’ve probably remembered 10% of the races that I’ve run, which is funny because I think about it now, and you have bad races and you get pissed off. But then, I think about it and there have been a lot of races where I’ve been pissed off and I don’t remember them eventually, so it’s going to be OK.”
Logano wants to become NASCAR’s next “Iron Man.” During Jeff Gordon’s retirement sendoff in 2015, the four-time Cup champion passed Ricky Rudd for the most consecutive starts in Cup history (797). To reach that goal, Logano must compete in every race for the next five-and-a-half seasons.
And even getting to 906 total starts, which Rudd ranks second on the all-time list, isn’t out of the question. That said, Richard Petty’s mammoth record of 1,184 starts seems safe for the time being.
“I’ve thought about it and I think I can do it,” Logano added of getting to 798 straight starts. “I need to start by staying healthy and not missing a race. I’m the only one that can do it right now. Why not go for it?”
Logano is determined to win his fourth championship this season, already locked into the playoffs via a victory at Texas Motor Speedway. Logano is two wins away from tying Wallace as the winningest driver in the Cup Series for Penske. He’s hoping to join Petty as the only driver to win their 600th start (Richmond Raceway, 1973).
“I always say that I’m going to race until I’m not competitive, especially now that the schedule is a lot easier than it used to be. If you can cut out a lot of other things in your life and can just race, it’s not that bad. It’s taxing, but my body feels OK. And we can compete for wins and I’m not holding back my team; I would do it. As soon as I start holding people back, I’m out.”
If there’s one aspect Lavar Scott recollects, it’s the noise.
Scott remembers attending Dover Motor Speedway during his childhood, and the experience wasn’t exactly pleasant. In fact, Scott recalls cupping his hands over his ears in an attempt to drown out the loud atmosphere.
Fast forward to 2025, and what was once displeasure is now excitement, with Scott looking to make his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut at the “Monster Mile” on Saturday as driver of the No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet in the BetRivers 200 (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). In a deal announced on July 1, the Dover date will be the first of two Xfinity Series races Scott will attempt with the team this season, with the other scheduled for September at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.
“I think I’m definitely mentally ready,” Scott said. “I mean, I’m 21 now. I’ve been in ARCA for two years, so this is something that could have happened years ago, right? I could have expedited this process a long time ago, but I just waited to, I felt like, mentally, it was the right time. I have the experience on my belt, and I’ve raced mile-and-a-half tracks, short tracks, Daytona (International Speedway), Talladega (Superspeedway). So I feel mentally, this is the time to do so.
“So I’m ready for that. I have no type of nerves in that way, or kind of scared, or ‘am I ready’ doubtful mindset at all, just pure excitement. I know I’ve put in the work in the past five years with Rev Racing, and I’ve learned, I’ve watched, I’ve talked to many people and I think I’ve done the true underwork to have a good performance and have a good debut in this. I think we’ll do it.”
While a potential NASCAR national-series start is a new frontier for Scott, racing is anything but. As part of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity Driver Development Program, Scott wheeled his way through the NASCAR Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series in 2021-22 before making the jump to the ARCA Menards Series in 2023. After a 2023 campaign where he tallied five top fives and seven top 10s in the East Series, Scott transitioned to full-time competition in 2024. Upward momentum continued; the No. 6 Rev Racing Chevrolet driver compiled 15 top 10s out of 20 races, finished second in the championship standings and won the 2024 ARCA Menards Series Rookie of the Year Award.
Visual acclimation and simulator work have helped Scott prepare for the weekend. Even still, Scott can’t ignore ARCA (which he describes as his “office”), where he has sharpened his racing craft with Rev Racing; Scott is currently third in the 2025 championship standings and has six top fives and nine top 10s in nine races, with Friday’s General Tire 150 (5 p.m. ET, FS1) the opportunity to continue positive momentum.
“I think I’m balancing the two pretty well, like, I know I need to put in extra work for the Xfinity side of things, because it’s something I haven’t done before, right?” Scott said. “But I’m definitely not forgetting the main thing is the ARCA car. That’s obviously a fight for the championship, so I got to keep the main thing, but I know I need to work hard on the Xfinity side of things, so when I do go to practice and unload, we’re not off pace, right? But just gotta balance the two. I think I’ve done it pretty well.”
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
Dover will act as a homecoming of sorts for Scott, who, as a New Jersey native, considers the 1-miler to be his “home” track. As such, eagerness (and, admittedly, impatience) to hit the Delaware concrete has only grown, and talking to drivers — including Craftsman Truck Series full-timer Rajah Caruth — has further provided an avenue to prepare for the big day.
Adjusting to the field will also receive emphasis, especially since Scott has raced against several full-time Xfinity Series drivers before at the very same track. Look no further than the 2024 General Tire 150, where Scott finished fourth and Connor Zilisch and Carson Kvapil (now JR Motorsports teammates) scored first and third, respectively.
“I feel like every lap you’re around somebody or you’re racing somebody,” Scott said when speaking about the strength of the Xfinity Series field, “you have to do something different to try to get around somebody or block somebody. So I think with that, I’m trying to get acclimated to that racing because I feel like in ARCA you have multiple laps to kind of think about before you do it, whereas in Xfinity, I mean, every single lap is gonna be different racing around with somebody, and if you make a move, you’re gonna get passed by 10 people, right? So, I think with that, it’s good for me because I get to learn. And that’s what I’m doing this for is to learn and get experience.”
Representation also plays a factor in Scott’s mindset heading into the weekend. As part of the Drive for Diversity Driver Development Program’s 2024 class, Scott not only has grown his racing portfolio, but has also encouraged kids from diverse backgrounds to gain an interest in racing.
Understanding his impact has only made his upcoming Saturday start that much more exciting, and to do so with Alpha Prime Racing — the same team Caruth debuted with in 2022 — is an opportunity Scott won’t forget.
“I mean, it’s been so big for me,” Scott said. “I mean, the message that I’ve got from kids that are kind of looking up to me now, saying they support me, watching me and trying to come to the race, has been so much for me. That’s a lot of reason why I’m here, right, if I want to do things that I do. So it’s exciting for me, and I’ll try to have a good result for, really, all my fans and supporters. Like I said, I just can’t wait, and I’m so excited.”
The next step in the racing journey begins in familiar territory for the young Scott, and while Dover might’ve turned Scott away all those years ago, nothing is doing so now.
This time, there will be much more to remember.
“This is something that I’ve always wanted my whole life was to have this moment,” Scott said. “So I’m just happy. Life is very good right now.”
Six races remain until the 2025 Cup Series Playoffs begin, and the picture around the cutline is looking clearer.
Playoff Probabilities provided by Racing Insights (entering Dover)
Four spots are still up for grabs, but Ryan Preece appears to be the only driver within reasonable striking distance as he sits just three points back of Bubba Wallace after a pair of road courses. Kyle Busch scraped together a top 10 at Sonoma despite spinning last weekend in Wine Country and now he sits just 37 points below the cutline.
This Sunday, NASCAR returns to its more traditional tracks on the circuit with a trek to Dover Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). With the latest postseason projections provided by Racing Insights, let’s take a look at who is in a good spot entering the “Monster Mile” and whose playoff hopes could dip.
Sticking with Preece (37.18% playoff probability) to continue his climb amid a great summer stretch. He hasn’t finished worse than 15th dating back to Michigan and upcoming tracks like Dover, Iowa and Richmond should play into the short-track ace’s favor, which is why he slots into the playoff predictor as the last man in over Wallace. Preece has yet to score a top 10 in eight Dover starts at the Cup level, but his numbers at a different concrete track (Bristol) are good enough to make the case that the No. 60 RFK Ford will be a factor this weekend.
Most eyes this weekend will be on Kyle Larson to see if he can snap out of a funk he’s been in since a disastrous Memorial Day weekend “Double,” but Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman (62.19% playoff probability) shouldn’t be overlooked at Dover. Bowman has placed eighth or better in three of the last five races and Dover has been one of his best tracks lately. Highlighted by a 2021 win, Bowman has placed inside the top five in five of the last seven races at the “Monster Mile.”
YELLOW FLAG [Who’s on the fringe for Dover]
Tyler Reddick (99.07% playoff probability) is an interesting case here. A whopping 149-point cushion to the cutline should have the No. 45 23XI Racing team feeling good about their playoff hopes, but it’s the element of surprise from someone winning outside the picture or a couple slip-ups that could put Reddick in some serious trouble. His Dover numbers aren’t the worst, but Reddick finished just 11th in last year’s event. Now, he enters this weekend with three consecutive top 10s. Those results could be a deciding factor to get Reddick into the postseason on points if he ends up needing mulligans at tracks like Iowa, Watkins Glen or Daytona.
RED FLAG [Who I’m concerned about heading to Dover]
I just don’t think there’s anyone you can slot in here other than Bubba Wallace until he turns the corner (no pun intended). Top 10s at Nashville and Michigan appeared to be the lift Wallace needed to start a summer surge, but it’s all gone downhill since his No. 23 Toyota didn’t fire for qualifying at Pocono. His best finish in the last four races was 22nd at Atlanta, where he was involved in two separate incidents. He then finished 28th at Chicago after a back-and-forth with Bowman in the closing laps led to the No. 23 being spun. Wallace was able to collect a chunk of stage points at Sonoma to maintain his slim gap above the cutline, but he still finished 26th.
Dover is another proving ground for Wallace. He doesn’t own a top 10 in 10 starts at the concrete oval and crashed out in the final stage of last year’s race. If it’s not a top 10 this weekend, Wallace needs to stay with Preece and, at the very least, bring the No. 23 to the checkered flag Sunday without a scratch.
An entrepreneurial team owner who employed David Pearson, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney and many of the greatest names in racing.
Glen Wood, who would have turned 100 on Friday (July 18), was a man of many talents, and he made sure to document every facet of his life less ordinary.
This ostensibly is a shrine to the most venerable team in NASCAR history. For 53 of its 75 years, the team competed out of Stuart — the building now housing the museum is the last of its four shops here — and the life-size photos of racing legends exulting in their glory are omnipresent from the first step inside the lobby.
But the vast collection of trinkets, tools and treasures from everyday life also tell the story of growing up in rural Southwest Virginia during the mid-20th century. For several years before his death on Jan. 18, 2019 (“93 and a half to the day,” Len notes), Glen Wood spent much of his time organizing thousands of mementos.
He designed the main trophy room at the museum, which was founded after 4,000 fans crowded into the building at an April 2011 autograph signing on the heels of Trevor Bayne’s Daytona 500 victory.
“Before that this is just where we raced, and we just left stuff laying there when we left (for a new North Carolina shop in 2003), and it was the biggest mess you ever seen,” Eddie Wood said. “And then Trevor wins the 500, and we cleaned it up. We started hanging photos, and that started it.”
Leonard Wood shown in the shop area of the Wood Brothers Racing Museum in Stuart, Virginia. (Nate Ryan for NASCAR.com)
Dozens of photos are hanging from the walls (Eddie finds the images, and Len does the layout), and many of those featured are often at the museum in the flesh. Leonard Wood, the 90-year-old who founded Wood Brothers Racing with his older brother, still is tinkering daily on carburetors and half-scale engines in a shop area at the back of the 15,000-square-foot space (his 93-year-old brother, Delano, the team’s longtime jack man, still stops in occasionally, as does their sister, Crystal, 92).
On a Wednesday afternoon last month, the main project on the rear loading dock was sifting through dumpsters filled with thousands of old uniforms being chosen for display. The work was interrupted by the arrival of a wooden cargo crate containing the trophy (and multiple replicas) from Josh Berry’s victory at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the team’s 100th in Cup.
“I call it a living museum,” Len said. “And it changes all the time.”
Some displays are on loan in the Great Hall of the NASCAR Hall of Fame (which opened its 75th anniversary of Wood Brothers Racing exhibit in May), and Bayne’s winning Daytona car remains at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
But those absences are hardly noticeable amid the endless keepsakes in the trophy room alone. Among the highlights are Glen’s handwritten 2012 Hall of Fame speech and a metal flip board filled with dozens of driver mugshots. (Glen collected photos of every person he could remember racing.)
There is a wall dedicated to Dan Gurney, who won four Cup races at Riverside International Raceway with Wood Brothers Racing. The exhibit includes Gurney’s final NASCAR racing helmet that was donated by his family in exchange for WBR’s trophy from his 1966 win at Riverside (which completed a collection of his Cup victories). Nearby is the uniform worn by Glen to fuel Gurney’s winners at Riverside.
“Another of our unique finds that Daddy just came walking out of his closet with eight years ago,” Len said.
That’s one of the museum’s myriad firesuits. There also are nearly two dozen cars covering three generations of NASCAR — along with some quirky surprises.
On the wall to the left of the door to the old shop, there is a laminated wedding announcement for Betty Jane Zachary and William C. France. (“The bride wore a gown of Chantilly lace with a bustle effect in the back. She is Miss Bowman Gray Stadium of 1956-57.”) Lying randomly atop a best-in-class blue ribbon (won by the team’s famed 1971 Mercury Cyclone at The Amelia Concours d’Elegance car show) is a 2023 annual hard card for the Historic Sportscar Racing series. The photo credential identifies Jim France as an official of the series owned by NASCAR.
Eddie Wood’s favorite recent addition came from an old toolbox at his parents’ house (“we run across stuff there all the time”), where he found a pair of hammers with special bronzed heads.
On the back was an Indy 500 logo. The hammers were used to practice changing tires (Leonard on the front, late brother Ray Lee on the rear) for 1965 Indy 500 winner Jim Clark.
“Everything here’s got a story,” Eddie Wood said.
Many of them involve Glen Wood.
Glen Wood’s uniforms hang at the Wood Brothers Racing Museum in Stuart, Virginia. (Nate Ryan for NASCAR.com)
Honoring the centennial of his birth, here are a few of the special exhibits and touches at the Wood Brothers Racing Museum that help tell his life story:
— No place like “Homeplace”: Wood Brothers Racing’s first shop was inside a small barn in the Buffalo Ridge area about 12 miles from the museum. Affectionately known as “the Homeplace,” it’s part of the house and property where Glen Wood and his five siblings were raised, and there are many nods to their origins.
A chain hangs from the ceiling and is connected to a branch symbolizing the beech tree used to hoist engines out of WBR’s early race cars (the original beech tree still stands and is the site of the family’s annual Thanksgiving Day photos). There’s a piece of the Homeplace’s original hardwood floor, and the crib in which several generations of Woods were rocked from 1923-92.
— A sharper edge: The museum features numerous chainsaws that were fancied by Glen, who remained into botany and gardening long after leaving the sawmill business. He bought the team’s first race car with $25 that he made from the sawmill (a friend chipped in another $25).
“Once he kind of got established, he began making more money in a race car than he did a sawmill,” Len Wood said. “The sawmill was harder work, but racing was more dangerous.”
— Glen vs. Glenn: Many of the museum’s items refer to “Glenn Wood,” which is the name on his birth certificate. His spire in the NASCAR Hall of Fame lists his name as “Glen,” which Eddie and Len said their father began using to sign his employees’ checks in the late 1950s.
“He’d shorten it up for paying them all,” Len said. “We try to use two N’s when we do anything with his name now. But we don’t change anything that had it as ‘Glen.’ ”
— Special banners: It’s about a 30-minute drive to Martinsville Speedway, the Cup track closest to Stuart and the family’s heart. On the first race weekend there after Glen’s death, nearly 1,500 signatures were collected on posters honoring “The Woodchopper” under the watchful eye of his widow, Bernece (who died in 2021).
“We got a chair for Momma so she could just sit there as all the people would walk by her to sign,” Len Wood said. “Bill Elliott, Chase Elliott, Darrell Waltrip, Michael Waltrip, Kyle Petty. They all have signed it.”
— Sunday driving: One of the newest vehicles in the museum actually isn’t a race car but the last street car owned by Glen Wood — a silver 2003 Jaguar XJ Vanden Plas.
“He got up one morning and said, ‘I need to get a new car, I might get a Jag,’ ” Eddie Wood said. “Jackie Stewart was running the Jaguar F1 team at the time. So Dad went to Greensboro and came back with it.”
Always attuned to fuel mileage, Glen Wood annually tried to complete the 610-mile trip from Stuart to Daytona Beach on a single tank of 23 gallons, but it was the only Daytona finish line that his car couldn’t reach.
“Mama would be screaming at him, ‘You’re going to run out of gas,’ ” Eddie said. “So he would stop about 100 miles or 50 miles out.”
With only seven races remaining to set the 12-driver NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff field, Saturday’s BetRivers 200 (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Dover Motor Speedway could play a big role in the championship outlook.
Four teams are represented among the top five drivers in the championship standings, with reigning series champion, JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, holding a 59-point advantage over Haas Factory Team driver Sam Mayer atop the current rankings. Allgaier (2018 and 2020) joins two-time defending race winner Ryan Truex as the only multi-time race winners at the Dover mile.
But Mayer, who boasts an impressive 11 top-10 and eight top-five finishes through the first 19 races – his 15 top-15 showings are a season best – is hoping Dover’s Monster Mile will be where he celebrates his first victory of the season. The 21-year-old Mayer was third in last year’s race and is a perfect three-for-three in top-10 finishes there.
A victory for the Ford driver Mayer Saturday afternoon would halt a record 11-race winning streak for Chevrolet this season. The bowtie has won 17 of 19 races.
It’s Joe Gibbs Racing, however, that boasts the most wins at Dover – 15. Its lineup of Xfinity Series championship hopefuls includes a pair of talented rookies in William Sawalich and Taylor Gray and along with veteran Brandon Jones and this week, former NASCAR Cup Series star Aric Almirola in the No. 19 JGR Toyota.
The three full-time drivers have all turned in standout summers with the rookie Sawalich coming off a career-best third-place showing on the Sonoma road course last week. Jones just scored his best two-stage efforts of the season at Sonoma. Gray arrives fresh off his ninth top-10 finish of the season in California and is a former ARCA Menards Series winner at Dover, leading 116 of 125 laps to win from pole position in 2022.
Interestingly, it’s cousins Jeb and Harrison Burton, who are straddling the playoff line. Jeb Burton, driver of the No. 27 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet, holds a 16-point advantage over Harrison Burton, driver of the No. 25 AM Racing Ford, for that 12th and final playoff position.
Jeb Burton has finished 13th or better in five of his seven Dover starts, with a best finish of seventh in 2020. Harrison Burton has similar encouraging statistics with three top-10s in four starts and a top effort of fifth place – also in 2020.
The entire series, however, must find a way to best the mighty JR Motorsports team, which has won 10 races this season with six different drivers. It is coming off a phenomenal showing at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway where five drivers finished among the top-10 and 18-year-old phenom Connor Zilisch claimed his third win of the season.
Zilisch now ties his teammate, Allgaier, and Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill for most wins on the season. They are the only competitors with multiple trophies.
NASCAR Cup Series regular Ross Chastain will steer the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet this weekend and two-time defending Dover race winner Truex will drive the No. 24 Toyota for Sam Hunt Racing. NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series standout Rajah Caruth is hoping to make his first Xfinity Series start of the season. He’s entered in the Jordan Anderson Racing No. 32 Chevrolet. In addition, ARCA Menards Series rising star Lavar Scott will also be attempting to make his Xfinity Series career debut this weekend in the No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet.
Practice is at 11 a.m. Saturday followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 12:05 p.m. — both sessions available on The CW App. Brandon Jones is the defending Xfinity pole-winner.
Kyle Larson will participate in this year’s NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. There’s no doubt about that.
With three wins in 2025, the Hendrick Motorsports driver is tied for most victories in the field with Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Shane van Gisbergen. However, this summer has been rough for Larson’s standards and he hasn’t found race-winning pace since his dominant Kansas win in May.
Will Larson get back to his winning ways Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) or will the No. 5’s July slide extend? Let’s look at who Racing Insights projects to win at the “Monster Mile” with a detailed look into the numbers.
Defending Dover winner Denny Hamlin is projected to make it two in a row in Delaware this weekend. It should come as no surprise as the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver has outclassed the field on concrete tracks recently. At Dover, he has two wins, four top fives and an average finish of 8.43 in the last seven races. He also ranks first in speed and third in restarts at the track, according to NASCAR Insights.
Larson comes second on the results prediction sheet, also just like last year, as Hamlin fended off the late surge from the California native. Larson will take another runner-up result this weekend as he’s only placed in the top five once in the last eight races (Michigan). Within the eight-race span, Larson has only scored three top 10s and has only led a combined 37 laps — 34 in the Coca-Cola 600 and three at Sonoma.
It’s unfamiliar territory for Larson since joining Hendrick in 2021, but this drought should end Sunday. Larson’s 938 laps led at Dover are the third most he’s led at a track on the circuit in his career and he’s finished third or better at the 1-mile oval in four of the last six events.
ROSS CHASTAIN: Just behind the pair of Hamlin and Larson at Dover is Chastain. The No. 1 Trackhouse Racing driver has been lights out at the track in the Next Gen car. He finished third and second in 2022 and 2023, respectively, but finished 12th last year to see his average finish in the last three Dover races dip to a not-too-shabby 5.7.
CHASE ELLIOTT: Elliott should continue his impressive top-20 streak this weekend. He won the 2022 edition at Dover and followed up with results of 11th and fifth the last two years. The 2020 series titleholder sits just 14 points behind his Hendrick teammate William Byron for the regular season points lead and could be in line to jump the No. 24 on Sunday.
ALEX BOWMAN: Don’t forget about the No. 48. Bowman hasn’t finished worse than eighth in his last four Dover starts and won the 2021 event. He enters the weekend 32 points above the playoff cutline and will need to turn in a fifth straight top-10 performance at Dover to build more breathing room.
COLE CUSTER: The No. 41 Haas Factory Team driver may not be in line to win on Sunday, but his Cup numbers at Dover have been mighty impressive. He’s finished no worse than 15th in four starts and racked up top 10s in the two 2020 events. A similar result this weekend would be a huge shot in the arm for Custer amid a difficult 2025 campaign.
RACING INSIGHTS’ PROJECTIONS FOR THE AUTOTRADER ECHOPARK AUTOMOTIVE 400
Racing Insights’ advanced statistical formula incorporates current track, track type, recent performance, team data and pit-crew data to predict a projected winner and provide full race results. Updated on race day with practice and qualifying factored in.
After a stretch of races at a drafting track (won by Chase Elliott) and back-to-back road/street courses (both won by Shane van Gisbergen), the Cup Series gets back to its oval-racing roots this weekend.
Well, sort of.
On Sunday, drivers will try to tame Dover’s “Monster Mile” — which at least does have four left turns. But that might be one of the few things it has in common with the rest of the schedule. Dover is one of only a handful of tracks paved with concrete, which already sets it apart from the norm. It’s also marked by its high-banked corners, and the constant g-forces drivers face as they ride the fence on the straights and dive to the apron on turns. Add in the 400-mile distance — easily the longest race at any track shorter than 1.3 miles — and you’ve got one of the most challenging events on the Cup calendar.
The thing about a challenge, however, is that it brings out the best the sport has to offer — and that has certainly been the case for Dover over the years. In fact, you could argue Dover is the highest-skill track in Cup, based on both who wins there and how well the pre-race favorites tend to hold up on the track (with one big caveat).
Let’s start with the winners, which in recent years have included future Hall of Famers Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Elliott. According to the pre-race projected Driver Ratings, the average recipient of Miles the Monster has ranked No. 4.6 in the field entering the race. That’s the second-best placement for winners at any track with at least five races since 2005 — COTA’s average is 4.0 in exactly five races, but it’s generally easier for favorites to win road courses (just ask SVG) — and Dover is the best of any track with double-digit races in that span:
In other words, you can be pretty sure Dover’s winning driver was regarded highly beforehand, one mark of a track that rewards a high degree of skill. Contrast that with the superspeedways at Daytona and Talladega on the opposite end of the list, where chaos reigns supreme.
That’s not the only way we can tell Dover is a place where the best and brightest drivers tend to shine, of course. We can also flip things around and see how the favorites tend to fare at any given site, under the theory that a great track lets the best drivers live up to expectations.
And by that measure, Dover once again looks like a true test of skill. It again ranks second only to a much smaller-sample track — Nashville, another concrete intermediate — in terms of the average Driver Rating produced by the top-ranked entry in the pre-race rankings (114.0), easily higher than next-ranked New Hampshire (112.3).
Want to know just how reliable Dover is for favorites in terms of running an extremely strong race? In their past 22 races at the track, dating back to the 2012 season, the No. 1 ranked driver in the pre-race rankings has posted a Driver Rating in the triple digits 17 times — including a stretch of nine in a row at one point — and they’ve been at or above a rating of 97.6 in all but two races during that span.
The upshot of all this is that Dover tends to produce excellent winners and also rewards the best drivers with strong runs. So what’s the catch, then? Well, just because a driver has a great Driver Rating does not mean he’ll win the race. (We’ll spare you the gory details of the Driver Rating formula, but it rewards mid-race speed as much as high finishes.) And again, as we saw in our previous research on the superspeedways, tracks with a tendency toward chaotic crashes will also trend toward dragging great cars down in the final finishing order, no matter how good they looked earlier in the race.
Indeed, this is exactly what we see when we compare Dover to other tracks according to the pre-race favorite’s average finish. Despite their stronger form during the race at the Monster Mile, favorites tend to finish worse at Dover (9.1 on average) than at Loudon (7.7), Darlington (7.9), Richmond (8.7) or, when we still ran there, Fontana (9.0).
The big reason why? While those other tracks boast an average rate of 97.1% to finish the race for the favorite, the pre-race No. 1 at Dover only finishes 91.7% of the time on average — below the norm for favorites at ovals in the Cup Series overall.
We said before that Dover is one of the most demanding tracks on the Cup calendar, and that applies in a bunch of different ways. The constant up-and-down roller-coaster of each lap puts a lot of strain on the equipment, which opens up the chance for parts to fail and end your day. It’s a narrow track and a hard one to pass on; lapped traffic is always a factor for the leaders to deal with up front. And it runs a comparatively high speed for its length — much faster than other tracks around a mile long, such as Loudon, Phoenix and Iowa — which gives drivers less time to react when an accident happens ahead of them. You can usually count on at least one big wreck that collects multiple cars in the process.
With so many different ways to ruin an otherwise great run, the Monster Mile lives up to its fearsome reputation. The drivers know it will be far from a smooth Sunday cruise for them out on the bumpy Delaware concrete. But they also know how much effort and commitment it takes to win there — and the sense of accomplishment that comes if you can actually survive the perils of Dover and ride to Victory Lane.
The NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series trek to the Mid-Atlantic for their annual stop at Dover Motor Speedway this weekend. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway in the rearview and the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 at Dover Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports/truTV, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) up next.
1. In-Season Challenge: A final four that nobody predicted
Ty Dillon has suddenly become the face of the In-Season Challenge, taking down heavyweight after heavyweight as he inches closer to $1 million. What happens next, and how did we wind up here?
No bracket could have forecasted this outcome.
The In-Season Challenge, meant to inject a spark into the mid-to-late regular season, has instead ignited a wildfire of surprise. If you predicted the literal last-seeded Ty Dillon to make the final four, good on you.
(Also, stop lying. No, you didn’t.)
We’re down to Dillon, Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick and John Hunter Nemechek as ISC headliners. This quartet — who, coincidentally, all have past Cup Series starts with 23XI Racing — reflects the chaos and opportunity baked into midseason NASCAR, where raw determination sometimes trumps expected results and occasional surprises happen. But Dillon’s doing it every week.
The Kaulig Racing driver’s campaign is the heartbeat of the whole tournament. Initially counted out against top-seeded Denny Hamlin, he’s driven like a man with nothing to lose and plenty to prove. Dillon’s audacious, late-race move at Sonoma against Alex Bowman (who himself provided a similar highlight a week prior) might end up being the defining clip of the challenge.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
No. 10 has shifted from afterthought to eliminator, drawing eyes to a driver currently living outside the top 30 in points. But between the aggression on track and the lighthearted smack talk promos that follow, every quote, every shove into the corner reminds fans that the ISC clearly brought the attitude, and these drivers will do almost anything to advance one week closer to a $1 million payday.
Gibbs reached this stage through persistence and sharp execution, coming alive over the past month after a season’s worth of increasing spotlight on his inability to win a Cup Series race. Advancing past AJ Allmendinger at Chicago was notable as Gibbs’ road-course talents have been on full display the past month. His journey is less flashy than Dillon’s but perhaps just as impactful, as it’s apparent the ISC put a spark back in what should be a playoff-caliber team. That now feels feasible again at just 60 points below the cutline.
Reddick’s progress mirrors the ISC’s unpredictable nature. He’s a Championship 4 contender, but winless this year and had one top 10 in the nine races leading into the tourney. How has he responded? Oh, by turning in his best three-race stint of the season to topple Kyle Larson, Carson Hocevar and Ryan Preece, with a strong sixth-place run at Sonoma being his worst ISC showing.
Nemechek has made his mark by playing the percentages; not by dominating, but by surviving. Riding a pair of P6 runs into the challenge, JHN was a popular sleeper pick who rewarded those who selected him by … averaging a 23.0 finish across the first three races. But you know what? He’s still here — and took down one of the favorites in the process in Chase Elliott.
Outwit, outplay, outlast, baby.
Together, these four represent part of the ISC’s original pitch — that new names and unexpected stories could command the spotlight. This variety has given the challenge its greatest value, as fans invest in a race where the field is wide open and every outcome is not predictable in the least.
Entering Dover, the sense of possibility has never been sharper. None of them has ever won at the “Monster Mile,” but it won’t be necessary to advance this weekend.
The ISC is no longer an experiment, but a showcase of tenacity, skill … and the art of the upset.
James Gilbert | Getty Images
2. Is Hendrick’s best shot at Dover … Alex Bowman?
Hendrick Motorsports as a whole dominates the “Monster Mile,” and that isn’t expected to change this weekend. What could be surprising, however, is the driver in its stable that winds up in Victory Lane.
Rarely does a trip to Dover Motor Speedway start with uncertainty for Hendrick Motorsports.
The team’s record at the “Monster Mile” is nothing short of legendary: 22 wins, a streak of at least one car in the top 10 every race for the past 15 years and a legacy that threads through every corner of the 1-mile, steeply banked oval. Yet entering this weekend, the familiar air of dominance carries a twist — it’s not certain which driver might hold Hendrick’s best hand on Sunday.
All four drivers are more than capable of getting it done in Delaware, and three of them have (all four if you count this blast from the past), but the quartet enters this weekend with varying degrees of question marks.
Kyle Larson hasn’t looked quite right since Memorial Day Weekend, and the numbers back it up. Chase Elliott, while categorically and statistically strong, hasn’t rolled off multiple wins yet. William Byron owned the first half of the season but is in a midseason lull. And Alex Bowman is 15th in the playoff standings, a mere 32 points from being on the wrong side of the elimination line with six races remaining to decide the playoff field.
And yet, the only one among them not locked into the postseason may actually be the best positioned to tame the monster this weekend.
Bowman’s recent record at Dover is a model of reliability and timing. Since 2019, he’s collected six top-10 finishes in seven starts, and in 2021 he scored what remains one of the most memorable wins of his career as part of the historic Hendrick 1-2-3-4 sweep (in which he, obviously, beat all of ’em.)
But that performance wasn’t an outlier. No active driver has tallied more top fives in that span, and his average running position with the Next Gen car at Dover is unmatched in the field.
He’s also quietly surging, with the No. 48 team responding to back-to-back single-point showings at Nashville and Michigan by averaging 32.6 points in the five races since. For a Hendrick team that expects to win annually at Dover, the possibility of a fresh 2025 hero this weekend — one with the history to justify the faith — could provide the spark this storied organization hasn’t often needed, but may benefit from now.
Tyler Reddick shares his point-of-view from the big wreck that kept his In-Season Challenge hopes alive as he threaded the needle while Ryan Preece suffered damage at Sonoma.
4. Why hasn’t three-time champ Joey Logano won at Dover?
Dover Motor Speedway previously held two races a year, so No. 22 is closing in on 30 starts there … but with no finishes higher than third. It’s — by far — the track he has the most starts at without visiting Victory Lane. Is the 29th time the charm? (Credit: Racing Insights)
Track
Starts
Best finish
Dover
28
3rd
California
16
2nd
Sonoma
15
3rd
Indianapolis
13
2nd
Chicago
11
2nd
Kentucky
10
2nd
Charlotte Roval
7
2nd
COTA
5
3rd
5. Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage
