Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Busch expounds on post-race emotion

Kyle Busch’s hopes for strong start to Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race were dealt a blow when his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota lost a wheel after his first pit stop at Dover International Speedway.

Busch started first after winning his first Coors Light Pole Award of the year, and he led the field onto pit road when the yellow flag flew for the first time in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism on Lap 16. Busch left pit road first, but his crew’s haste left his car’s left-rear wheel improperly attached.

The wheel dislodged shortly after pit exit, causing damage to the car’s left-rear fender as Busch nursed his car (with three tires) back around the track. Busch was forced to make an extra stop during the caution period for repairs and restarted the race in 37th place.

The miscue could mean penalties this week for crew chief Adam Stevens and the JGR No. 18 team. The NASCAR Rule Book suggests a four-race suspension for crew chief, tire changer and tire carrier for a detached wheel.

This story will be updated.

Posted on by Pat DeCola

FLASHBACK: Dale Jr. shows you how to make a banana-mayo sandwich

DOVER, Del. – Chef Gordon Ramsay has made a name for himself over the years reviewing other culinary adventurers’ creations, often harshly.

NASCAR.com tasked Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism grand marshal with perhaps his most challenging review yet – the Dale Earnhardt Jr. banana-mayonnaise sandwich.

He, uh, didn’t hold back.

“Wow. That would give me (a not-too-pleasant gastrointestinal situation) for three weeks,” the ‘F-Word’ star said at Dover International Speedway. “Throw it away and start again. I would not be eating (expletive) banana and mayonnaise, no. Whatever Muppet put those two together needs to clean their core. Dale Jr. needs to call me.”

That seemed to be the general consensus when the Hendrick Motorsports driver shocked the world and created a phenomenon of grandi-gross proportions in April 2016 by tweeting a picture of the Dalewich, albeit with less profanity.

MORE: Hungry? Dale Jr. has a horrifying lunch suggestion

Ramsay, who is a self-proclaimed “car nut” who races in his spare time and loves the “electric” atmosphere at the “Monster Mile,” did have some suggestions to spice the sandwich up.

“Mayonnaise? Crème fraiche. Way better,” he said.

“Mashed banana, crème fraiche, little touch of vanilla. I’d take that thing to the Premier League.”

Posted on by Staff Report

Jimmie Johnson entered Sunday’s race one victory behind Cale Yarborough on the all-time list, and he raced at Dover International Speedway — where no one on this planet has won as much as “Seven-Time.”

Johnson delivered, winning for the 83rd time in his career and tying Yarborough for sixth-place all-time. Johnson already owned the Monster Energy Series record for career wins at the “Monster Mile” with 10 entering the race — he’s up to 11 now.

RELATED: See all of Jimmie’s wins

Johnson always speaks eloquently about his place in history, and on the day he earned No. 83, he did so with Yarborough along for the ride.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver revealed a gorgeous helmet design this weekend, with incredible photos of Cale himself.

Take a look (make sure to scroll through to see every angle):

 

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Starting lineup | The field in photos

The winningest driver at Dover International Speedway in NASCAR history started Sunday’s race from the rear of the field — and won anyway.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson, who had won 10 races at the 1-mile concrete oval coming into Sunday, moved to the back for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race. His team changed a rear gear in the No. 48 Chevrolet on Sunday morning.

Johnson had qualified 14th.

A seven-time Monster Energy Series champion, Johnson has proven in the past his ability to charge through the entire field and still contend for a victory. He demonstrated that again at Dover, notching his 11th win at the track in a frenetic finish that saw him pass race leader Kyle Larson on the final NASCAR Overtime restart.

Johnson led just seven laps, but he ran in the top five all day — once he got up there — and outdueled Larson and series points leader Martin Truex Jr. for his third victory of the year and 83rd of his career.

 

Posted on by Pat DeCola

RELATED: Full race results | Kyle Larson wins at Dover

DOVER, Del. – Somewhere out there, there’s a 19-year-old still accepting a weekly allowance from his parents.

At Dover International Speedway on Saturday, 19-year-old William Byron raced his way to a $100,000 bonus.

The JR Motorsports driver’s sixth-place finish in the OneMain Financial 200 at the Monster Mile propelled him to the fourth and final XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash prize, earning himself a cool hundred grand in the process. Thankfully, Byron has a good head on his shoulders and has no immediate plans to visit the Dover Downs casino located on site, but instead joked it could buy “a good education.”

“I don’t know (what my plans are for the money),” Byron said following the race. “It’s definitely a good thing for our race team. Good run for us; we needed that. Just really proud of all the guys on the JRM team and hopefully this is something we can keep building on.”

Byron was the highest-qualifying Dash 4 Cash driver in the final stage, topping a final group of qualifiers that included teammate and points leader Elliott Sadler along with Darrell Wallace Jr. and Brennan Poole.

RELATED: XFINITY Series standings | Byron’s career stats

The young driver set the Camping World Truck Series on fire in 2016, turning heads on his way to a series-record seven wins in 23 races by a rookie. While still winless this year, his XFINITY Series career got off to a stellar start through the season’s first six races with an average finish of 7.67.

Things have stalled a bit since, with the next four seeing a pair of finishes 30th or worse and zero top 10s. He’s hoping Saturday’s finish and earning the Dash 4 Cash prize — which he deemed “for sure the highlight” of his XFINITY career thus far — are signs that his team is starting to put things together to perform.

“To see the execution in the race and get there at the end … I know we got off cycle there and didn’t necessarily get the finish we wanted, but we were still able to charge up through there on new tires and that was exciting. It was fun to race with Elliott and Justin (Allgaier) and everyone that was battling for it,” Byron said.

JRM won three of four Dash 4 Cash prizes, with Allgaier taking Phoenix and Richmond, sandwiched by Richard Childress Racing’s Daniel Hemric taking Bristol.

“For JRM, I think it just shows the strength of our team to execute. I think we keep building and keep getting more speed. We’re executing really well in the race and our teammates are as well. That’s helping everyone get these Dash 4 Cashes and we’ll just keep building on that.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: Race results | Series standings | Detailed breakdown

DOVER, Del. – Saturday’s One Main Financial 200 ended as it started – as a two-man show with pole-sitter Kyle Larson on top.

Larson and Ryan Blaney were in a class by themselves at Dover International Speedway in the 11th NASCAR XFINITY Series race of the season. In winning for the third time in six starts this year, Larson led 137 of the 200 laps to Blaney’s 28.

In fact, Larson now has three wins, a second and a third this season for an average finish of 2.5 – numbers that could rival those of another Kyle, XFINITY Series all-time victory leader Kyle Busch.

“Our cars have been really good on both sides, (Monster Energy NASCAR) Cup and XFINITY,” Larson said. “Especially XFINITY, we’ve been extremely good. We’ve done a really good job adjusting to this new (lower-downforce) aero package.

“This is the best car I’ve had here. At a lot of the tracks we’ve gone to, it seems like this is the best XFINITY car I’ve had this time around. Just a lot of fun. Hats off to (crew chief Mike) Shiplett and the rest of the mechanics at the shop and the engineers – the real reason I’m getting to run up front more often.”

A first-time winner at Dover, Larson collected the eighth XFINITY victory of his career, finishing 1.173 seconds ahead of Blaney. Third-place Daniel Suarez crossed the stripe 14.078 seconds behind the race winner.

Cole Custer ran fourth, followed by Ryan Reed and William Byron, but Byron got the biggest consolation prize. The Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate collected a $100,000 bonus as the highest-finishing series regular among four drivers eligible for the prize in the last of four Dash 4 Cash events this season.

“Hopefully we can keep building on this,” said Byron, a 19-year-old driver in his first season of XFINITY competition with JR Motorsports. “We got off cycle the last (pit) stop. I wish we could’ve gotten a win, but a hundred grand’s really good. Good top-six for us. Hopefully we can get better next week. I think this is really something to build on.”

MORE: Dash 4 Cash payday goes to Byron

But the day belonged to Larson, who led the first 63 laps and had to win a drag race with Blaney to secure victory in the first 60-lap stage. After the second stage, won by Darrell Wallace Jr., divergent pit strategies shuffled Larson and Blaney to 13th and 14th, respectively, for a restart on Lap 128.

To Blaney, that was the key moment in the race, as his No. 22 Ford lost positions in a near-wreck with Wallace and couldn’t close on Larson despite a subsequent restart on Lap 141, after Blake Koch tangled with Daniel Hemric and Brennan Poole and nosed into the inside wall.

“We almost got wrecked when the 6 (Wallace) got loose below whoever that was, the white car (the No. 90 of Brandon Brown), and that actually cost us the race,” Blaney said. “That allowed Larson to get by us, and he set sail from there, even though there was another restart.

“He was about three rows ahead of us, and I couldn’t run him down by the time I got to second.”

Elliott Sadler’s seventh-place finish allowed him to stretch his lead atop the XFINITY standings. He leads JRM teammate Justin Allgaier, Saturday’s 11th-place finisher, by 12 points. Byron sits third in a 1-2-3 sweep atop the standings by JR Motorsports drivers.

The series’ next race is scheduled for next Saturday (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Pocono Raceway.

Contributing: Staff report

Posted on by Pat DeCola

DOVER, Del. — Following up on his Twitter comments earlier this week regarding Kyle Busch’s post-race display of emotion, Brad Keselowski held court Saturday at Dover International Speedway to expound on the topic.

MORE: Busch on emotion: ‘I’m sorry, that’s just who I am’

As a reminder, here is what the Team Penske driver posted on Monday following the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where race runner-up Busch dropped his microphone in an abrupt post-race press conference.

Keselowski elaborated after final practice for Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) during a media session in which he announced his Checkered Flag Foundation will make a $20,000 donation to the National Military Family Foundation.

“The way (the media) portrayed it was his ‘hunger to win,’ ” he said. “Look, there’s some real funny balances in life and especially in this motorsports world, but your desire to win is not connected to getting angry or any of those type of pieces in my mind. That’s one way of expressing it, but it’s not the only way to win. So, when people come out and write articles or the media comes out and says that’s a reflection of him having the most desire to win, it makes me want to throw up.

“Not only is that a terrible message to send to anyone that’s aspiring to be a driver in this sport, that’s a terrible message to send to anyone in general in this world that that is a reflection of your desire to win. … Your desire to win can be expressed in a lot of other ways that are productive.”

Busch addressed the topic after winning the Dover pole in Friday’s qualifying. He said that the frustration of finishing second, with victory slipping out of his reach in the late going of such a prestigious race, contributed to fueling his mood and reaction.

There has been no love lost between Keselowski and the Joe Gibbs Racing driver – each a champion in the sport – over the years. Their conflicts go beyond the race track, extending to their general philosophies on the desire to win and how a competitor should show it.

MORE: Busch, Logano mix it up on pit road following Vegas race

“Everybody is different. I can’t speak for him, specifically, but I can speak for the message,” said Keselowski, a two-time winner in 2017. “If I’m going to set a message for my daughter or kids or fans of mine, I want that message to be that it’s not by any stretch of the imagination the true definition of the most desire or the most passion to win.

“You want to show me desire and passion to win? It’s what you do when nobody is watching. That’s what’s the desire and passion to win. I would say to anyone that aspires to be great in this sport or in life that that’s what they should be looking at and that’s the message we should be sending to other kids, other people in this society and this sport.”

Posted on by Reid Spencer

RELATED: How Dale Jr. stacks up for Dover

DOVER, Del.– Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always been a “gamer.” He was one of the pioneers of iRacing, often spending hours online racing against armchair drivers across the globe.

Now Earnhardt is making full use of technology to up his game on the asphalt.

“We went to the simulator, which is something we’ve been trying to infuse into our process a little bit more,” Earnhardt said after qualifying 11th on Friday at Dover International Speedway. “It’s been bearing some fruit and helping us out and making us feel more confident going into the race weekends.

“We first really experienced that in Kansas and had a great practice the first day. Same thing here, we went to the simulator, picked a few things we liked, threw out some stuff that didn’t work.”

That’s one of the main efficiencies of simulator work – eliminating ideas that won’t work before the car gets to the track.

“We come to the race track and we unload, and there is obviously going to be some comments about the car that we want to fix,” Earnhardt said. “We know what not to mess with that is going to waste a lot of practice time, and we can just hit the things that we thought we liked in the sim. 

“They correlated really well today (in Friday’s practice). We got the car better in race trim. We only made one change and then swapped over really quick (to qualifying trim). Then for qualifying, we improved the car each run … I’m really happy. We’ve been working, trying to get better.”

 

Posted on by Staff Report

Take a look at the stats from drivers that attempted a run of 10 consecutive laps in practices at Dover International Speedway this weekend.

RELATED: Practice 3 results

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 42 Kyle Larson 1 10 156.652
2 18 Kyle Busch 1 10 156.188
3 48 Jimmie Johnson 2 11 156.069
4 2 Brad Keselowski 1 10 155.829
5 24 Chase Elliott 1 10 155.802
6 1 Jamie McMurray 1 10 155.693
7 4 Kevin Harvick 1 10 155.664
8 41 Kurt Busch 1 10 155.638
9 21 Ryan Blaney 1 10 155.625
10 20 Matt Kenseth 23 32 155.299
11 11 Denny Hamlin 2 11 155.098
12 19 Daniel Suarez # 13 22 154.613
13 14 Clint Bowyer 19 28 154.423
14 47 AJ Allmendinger 1 10 154.178
15 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 24 33 153.985
16 78 Martin Truex Jr. 24 33 153.921
17 22 Joey Logano 24 33 153.795
18 77 Erik Jones # 18 27 153.664
19 31 Ryan Newman 12 21 153.545
20 34 Landon Cassill 2 11 152.860
21 95 Michael McDowell 11 20 152.815
22 37 Chris Buescher 19 28 152.679
23 38 David Ragan 7 16 152.345
24 5 Kasey Kahne 35 44 152.286
25 3 Austin Dillon 25 34 152.247
26 43 Regan Smith(i) 29 38 151.868
27 10 Danica Patrick 25 34 151.495
RELATED: Practice 2 results
Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 1 Jamie McMurray 2 11 156.448
2 14 Clint Bowyer 2 11 156.382
3 20 Matt Kenseth 3 12 156.372
4 48 Jimmie Johnson 4 13 156.347
5 21 Ryan Blaney 1 10 156.288
6 18 Kyle Busch 10 19 156.067
7 42 Kyle Larson 27 36 155.881
8 5 Kasey Kahne 2 11 155.810
9 24 Chase Elliott 2 11 155.679
10 3 Austin Dillon 2 11 155.518
11 13 Ty Dillon # 2 11 155.424
12 11 Denny Hamlin 8 17 155.266
13 78 Martin Truex Jr. 18 27 155.078
14 27 Paul Menard 1 10 154.992
15 41 Kurt Busch 19 28 154.828
16 4 Kevin Harvick 15 24 154.550
17 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. 23 32 154.379
18 2 Brad Keselowski 25 34 154.373
19 31 Ryan Newman 21 30 153.676
20 47 AJ Allmendinger 21 30 153.120
21 32 Matt DiBenedetto 8 17 152.350
22 34 Landon Cassill 17 26 151.175
23 19 Daniel Suarez # 19 28 150.794
24 83 * Ryan Sieg(i) 21 30 148.172
25 51 * Cody Ware 1 10 147.902
26 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 20 29 146.692


RELATED: Practice 1 results

Pos Car Driver From Lap To Lap Avg Speed
1 42 Kyle Larson 2 11 155.569
2 24 Chase Elliott 9 18 154.120
3 11 Denny Hamlin 7 16 154.097
4 51 * Cody Ware 11 20 144.819

* Car must run 10 consecutive laps on the track to be included in the above chart.

Posted on by Staff Report

RELATED: Dover schedule | Final practice results | Best 10-lap averages

Kyle Larson landed atop the leaderboard for final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice Saturday at Dover International Speedway.

Larson clocked a best lap of 157.411 mph in the Chip Ganassi Racing No. 42 Chevrolet. Larson will start fifth in Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM), the 13th of 36 races in the series this year.

Jimmie Johnson, a 10-time Dover winner in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet, was second-fastest with a speed of 157.301 mph in the 50-minute session.

Kyle Busch, who will start from the pole in Sunday’s 400-miler, was third-fastest in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota at 157.246 mph. He scored his first Coors Light Pole Award of the season — and the 20th of his career — in Friday qualifying.

Martin Truex Jr., Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch all tied for fourth on the chart with an identical best speed of 157.143 mph.

Austin Dillon, last weekend’s first-time winner in the Coca-Cola 600, was 24th-fastest in the Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet.

Kyle Busch sets early Saturday pace in practice

RELATED: Practice 2 results 

Pole-sitter Kyle Busch was fast on Friday and again Saturday morning at Dover International Speedway, topping the morning practice session at 158.040 mph in the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series rising star Ryan Blaney had the second-fastest speed in the 55-minute session at 157.929 mph in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford.

Martin Truex Jr., was third on the Saturday morning speed chart at 157.874 mph in the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota and will share the front row with Busch for the start of Sunday’s AAA 400 Driver for Autism (1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio). Jimmie Johnson was fourth at 157.756 mph in the No.48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet followed by Kurt Busch at 157.708 mph in the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

Erik Jones spun on the concrete pavement with just under half an hour remaining in practice, but the rookie saved it and the No. 77 Furniture Row Racing Toyota suffered no damage. Jones returned to the track for the final five minutes of the session. He put up the seventh-fastest speed at 157.556 mph before spinning.

Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Larson had 15-minute practice holds for failing pre-qualifying tech multiple times and Kenseth also lost his pit stall selection for the weekend.