(11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, Charter Team – 163.741 miles per hour. 7. This material reacts differently to weather changes, temperature, and tire rubber making it a trick to master, but one team has had a secret to success at Dover.
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His 10 – yes, TEN – wins at the Monster Mile is an all-time record. Both drivers said they were OK during their post-race television interviews.
After 47 laps, Byron fell behind the leader for the first time. In addition to his 10 victories, Johnson has 15 top fives and 20 top 10s in 28 starts plus five pole-position starts, for good measure.
Because drivers can’t see everything that’s happening a few cars in front of them on the packed restarts, Johnson’s slow auto created calamity of the first order. Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards followed Busch.
If Johnson takes the checkered flag in Sunday’s AAA 400 Drive for Autism he will join select company: Richard Petty and Darrell Waltrip are the only drivers to win 11 or more races at single track.
Brad Keselowski has been an all or nothing driver at Dover International Speedway.
Also in the top five at Friday’s CWTS race were Christopher Bell, Johnny Sauter, and Cole Custer, who finished third, fourth, and fifth respectively. And the six-time champion has won three of the last five races here.
Thanks to an assist from Mother Nature, Kevin Harvick will lead the field to the green in Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway.
Matt Kenseth hopes Dover will turn his luck around now that he has scored two top 10’s the last three races. He has four top-5 finishes to his credit.
Dover has a special place in the fabric of Truex’s career. In 2015, he ran strong, placing 17th in the spring and 13th in the fall. None of the three drivers who rolled out backup cars after crashing in Friday’s practice cracked the top 15 in final Sprint Cup practice.
When the rain hit Dover, Kevin Harvick was prepared.
But the last race here was the worst one for Johnson and he’s tried to focus on the 10 wins rather than the one that got away. MTJ will be a steal anywhere outside of the top-10 drivers this Sunday.
Suárez came home second in the No. 51 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota, matching his career best.
In Tony Stewart’s first three starts since returning from his back injury, “Smoke” has placed 19th at Richmond, sixth at Talladega (with Ty Dillon finishing the race) and 12th at Kansas.
But several other drivers who are regulars in the win column have a big zero next to their name – notably Kurt Busch, Earnhardt, Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr.
(Truex Jr.) “Certainly we expect to make the Chase, we expect to win races”. He’s now 37th in the standings – 59 points behind 30th-place Regan Smith. Carl Edwards, a two-time victor this season, will start fourth, followed by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Ryan Newman. Here’s a look at the odds to win this race.
Johnson swept Dover in 2002 and 2009 and also won races in 2005, ’10, ’12, ’13 and ’14. Due to the amount of carnage scattered across the frontstretch, NASCAR stopped the race to allow track workers to clean up the accident. The win should vault him into the top five, considering he was tied with John Hunter Nemechek and one point behind Tyler Young.
Former Sprint Cup crew chief Todd Berrier, who is now Joe Gibbs Racing’s director of inspections, will sit atop Kyle Busch’s pit stall during Sunday’s race. (17) Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Ford, Charter Team – 163.815 miles per hour. 6.
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All that greatness surely helps balance the irony and disappointment of Johnson’s Chase-costing 41st-place finish in the series’ last Dover visit last October.
