NASCAR at Dover 2014: Complete Preview and Prediction for AAA 400
The fall Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway's Monster Mile has traditionally been a make-or-break race for Chase competitors. If you havenโt gotten your mojo working by Dover, then you're in a lot of trouble.
This year, with the new four-part Chase format, it could also mean the end of the road for several Chase drivers.
Sundayโs AAA 400 is the final event of the three-raceย Challenger Round, the first of four stages that leads to the season finale in Homestead. When the checkered flag falls Sunday, the four winless Chase drivers who are lowest in points will be eliminated from title contention.
The remaining 12 drivers will advance to the next stage, the Contender Round, and their points will be reset to 3,000.
As it stands, the four drivers on the hot seat are Denny Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola.
Qualifying Report
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Kevin Harvick has never won a Sprint Cup race at Dover International Speedway. Heโs never won the pole, either.
He may be on the verge of ending that winless streak after winning the pole for Sundayโs 45th Annual AAA 400, race number three of the 10 race Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Harvickโs winning lap of 22.905 seconds, 162.933 mph on the 1-mile all-concrete speedway came early in the final round of knock-out qualifying.
Although it was his first career Sprint Cup pole start at Dover, Harvick was thinking about the other perk that comes with winning the poleโa choice pit stall on Doverโs narrow pit roadโwhile being interviewed after qualifying had ended.
โI guess that is going to be a good deal to have the first pit stall,โ Harvick said in a post-qualifying television interview.ย โHere, especially under yellow you just don't have to go very far when you are leaving the pit box. The good pit stalls are typically on that end of pit road. If you wind up having to get out of your pits, and guys are still coming in as you are in the front of the pack, it is hard to get out of your stall. So, (Iโm) just really excited."
It was his 13th pole and his seventh pole start this seasonโone more pole than in his entire career prior to 2014.ย
โTrack position is huge here, especially at the beginning of the race,โ Harvick added. โIโve never been in that (first) stall, so I guess itโs going to be okay on that end of pit road.โย
Kyle Busch starts alongside of Harvick on the front row. Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski fill row two.
And non-Chase driver Jamie McMurray rounds out the top five. His teammate, rookie Kyle Larson starts seventh.ย
Notable starts: Jeff Gordon (6th), Jimmie Johnson (8th), Danica Patrick (13th), Matt Kenseth (14th), Tony Stewart (15th) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (25th).
Qualifying information and statistics courtesy of official NASCAR media release.ย
Why It's Called the 'Monster Mile'
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When Dover International Raceway was rebuilt in 1995, it becameย NASCARโs first all-concrete superspeedway.ย
With the current Gen-6 Sprint Cup cars, according to NASCAR loop data statistics, speeds entering the corners are nearly 200 mph, much faster than the engineers who designed the one-mile high-banked track had intended.
Itโs hard to perceive the extreme speeds that the current Sprint Cup Cup car travels around Dover while watching on television. In person, it's downright scary to watch cars angle their entry into Turn 1 from near the outside wall and then dive nearly three stories down the 24-degree banking into the inside lane before being rocketed out of Turn 2.ย
Things happen so fast on Doverโs one-mile surface that itโs very easy to get caught up in someone elseโs mistake. This makes Dover treacherous territory for the 16 Chase drivers. More than one Chase driverโs season has ended with a multicar wreck at Dover.
โDover is definitely one of the most taxing places that we go to for sure," Chase driver Kevin Harvick said in a pre-race media release. "There are just a lot of g-forces as you go off into the corner and it kind of throws you down into a hole. Thereโs a lot of banking with a lot of speed and itโs hard on your body. I usually leave out of there with sore heels from where my feet have beat on the floorboard through the day."
AAA 400 (Race No. 3 of the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup)
The Place: Dover International Speedway
The Date: Sunday, Sept. 28
The Time: Green flag approximately 2:18 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN, Countdown 1 p.m. ET
Radio: Motor Racing Network (MRN), Sirius XM Ch. 90
Distance: 400 miles (400 laps)
Defending Race-Winner:ย Jimmie Johnson
Key Storylines
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Whatโs up with the Hendrick Motorsports Drivers?
With all four of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers in the Chase, led by six-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson and four-time champion Jeff Gordon, fans were expecting to see at least one of the four drivers at the top and dominating the action.
Instead, theyโre being dealt a whole lot of Team Penske and a whole lot of โwe need to run betterโ from the Hendrick camp.ย
Johnsonโs record at Dover is remarkable. He has nine wins, 13 top-fives, 18 top-10s and three poles. Gordonโs is nearly as good, with three wins, 10 top-fives, 18 top-10s and two poles. Johnson sits fourth in points, while Gordon is seventh. Neither driver has really shown that he can pull away from the rest of the pack yet.
Johnson won here in June. He needs to kick-start his Chase run and Dover could be the place.
Earnhardt Jr.โs Dover record (heโs sixth in points) of three wins, 11 top-fives and 17 top-10s makes him a candidate for a win and an automatic entry into the next round.
While three of the four HMS drivers are inside the top 10 in points, Kasey Kahne sits just outside in 11th place. A bad weekend for any of them could spell disaster.
Team Penske Wants to Rule the World
Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano are making it look a bit too easy. Are these two teams that much better than the rest of the Chase competition?
Apparently they are.
The key to their success lies in their race cars and their crew chiefs, Paul Wolfe (Keselowski) and Todd Gordon (Logano). In the late stages of a race, when a driver typically struggles with the handling and tires of his race car, the Penske duo find little problem driving away from the rest of the field, as Logano proved with every restart last Sunday at Loudon.
Keselowski sees the big picture. One good day does not make you the champion.ย
โWeโre so early in this thing and with the resets that there are, the success of one day really means nothing come the last race at Homestead,โ Keselowski said in a pre-race media release. โItโs positive momentum and everything you want to do and think you should do, but when it resets it resets and nothing that youโve done in the past really matters as long as youโre eligible for the bracket. Weโre a long, long ways from using the word โfavoriteโ or feeling overly confident.โ
Yet here they are, making the rest of the Chase field scratch their head and wonder when, or even if, theyโre going to make a mistake and give everyone else a break.
Time for Stewart to Shake off His Troubles
With a record of three wins, 11 top-fives and 17 top-10s at Dover, the high-banked, all-concrete track could be the right medicine at the right time for Smoke.ย
Having been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the tragic death of fellow racer Kevin Ward Jr. this week by a grand jury in upstate New York, Stewart might be able to emerge from the fog of uncertainty this weekend and begin to move forward.
While no one will ever forget what happened, thereโs nothing most fans would like to see more Sunday than for Stewart to have a good day and come home with a decent (read: top-10) finish.ย
Is Chip Ganassi Racing the Best of the Rest?
If rookie Kyle Larson had qualified for this yearโs Chase (he missed by two spots), he would be sitting third in the Chase field based on his third-place finish in the opening round at Chicagoland and his runner-up showing at Loudon.
In the June race at Dover, Larson finished 11th.
His Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, Jamie McMurray, is coming off of a fourth-place finish at Loudon, which added to his streak of three top-10 finishes.
Dover isnโt one of McMurrayโs better tracks, so Sundayโs race will be a real test for both Ganassi drivers. Should they emerge from Dover in a fashion similar to their previous Chase race outings, the momentum could propel one or both of them into Victory Lane before the end of the season, making them true Chase spoilers.ย
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Top Contenders
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Jimmie Johnson
The June race-winner holds the win record for current Cup drivers at nine. This team needs to jump-start its Chase, and Dover could be just the place to do it.
Brad Keselowski
There's not a stronger team in NASCAR right now than this Paul Wolfe-led group. Wolfe is building great cars, and Keselowski is getting everything he can from them. This duo makes the Jimmie Johnson-Chad Knuas pairing look like old news.
Denny Hamlin
This is make-or-break time for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Hamlin needs a win Sunday to stay alive in the Chaseโperiod. He's winless on the Monster Mile, but he finished fifth in June. Only one question remains: Is his head still in the game?
Junior has won here before (three times), and while he doesn't need one now to move on to the next round, a win would give this Steve Letarte-led team some much-needed momentum going into Kansas next weekend.
Joey Logano
The other Team Penske bookend finished eighth in the June race and is always competitive at Dover. He could easily make it two in a row this Sunday.
Martin Truex Jr.
Dover is Truex's home track and the site of his first Sprint Cup win. No matter how his season is going, you can never count out Truex on his home turf. He finished sixth in June.
Jeff Gordon
Gordon had a tough outing here in June when he finished 15th. It's not indicative of how good his season has been. However, despite having a successful season so far, this team desperately needs a win to keep the pump running on Gordon's fountain of youth.
Potential Chase Spoiler: Clint Bowyer
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Although heโs winless at Dover, Clint Bowyer has a whopping 10 top-10s and finished fourth in June.
It took his Michael Waltrip Team most of the season to figure out how to be competitive. Even so, Bowyer remained positive all season.ย
"We've been good at Dover,โ Bowyer said in a pre-race media release. โI think we finished fourth last time, even had a shot at the win, but a caution kind of jumbled things up. But I've always run decent there, even back in the Nationwide days. I don't have a win in the Cup Series, but we've come close. It's definitely a track that a lot can happen and after last weekend I'm sure it will."
Bowyer is close friends with most of the drivers in the Chase, and heโd like nothing more than to grab a win away from them.
They probably wouldnโt mind, either.
And the Winner Is...
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Matt Kenseth
Last year, Kensethโs first with Joe Gibbs Racing, the team chalked up a series-leading seven wins and nearly won the title.ย This year, though, the team hasย struggled. Kenseth and Co. haveย not just been badโat some races, theyโve been embarrassingly bad.
Kenseth has remained a good sport throughout, reminding everyone that in racing, there are good times (like last year) and there are bad ones (now).ย But you could tell he was frustrated by how poorly his cars were running.ย
A third-place finish at the Bristol night race, followed by a runner-up at Atlanta on Labor Day weekend, put a ton of air in this teamโs sails. However, a mere top-10 (10th)ย and a 21st-place showing at Chicagoland and Loudon, respectively, set the team back two steps.
Dover is a good track for Kenseth. Wait...itโs more than thatโit's a great track for him. He has two wins, 14 top-fives and an amazing 20 top-10s with one pole. Even when heโs not running well, Kenseth runs well at Dover.ย He finished third in the June race.
Itโs time for Kenseth and his team to get up off the mat and show everyone that they still know how to win races.
It can happen this weekend.
All quotes are taken from official NASCAR, team and manufacturer media releases unless otherwise stated.
Bob Margolis is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association and has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, the NHRA and Sports Cars for more than two decades as a writer, television producer and on-air talent.ย
On Twitter:ย @Bobย Margolis
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