By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service

NASCAR All-Star Race Roars Into Dover’s Monster Mile for $1 Million Showdow

The always highly-anticipated, high-action NASCAR All-Star Race moves to a new venue for this year’s edition, Dover Motor Speedway. The Monster Mile, as Dover’s concrete high-banks are known, will host the $1 Million to-win race for the first time Sunday afternoon with all the action beginning at 1 p.m. ET (FS1, FOX Deportes, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The NASCAR All-Star Race will be held this weekend at Dover Motor Speedway in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

While the title of All-Star race winner may not pay points toward the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, it has absolutely turned into a good indicator of championship paths. Thirteen times the All-Star race winner has gone onto claim the series title, including three of the last six years with Chase Elliott (2020), Kyle Larson (2021) and Joey Logano (2024).

Motivation will not be a problem this weekend.

Currently 19 drivers are locked into the All-Star Race final 200-lap “segment” and trophy-determining portion of the event – including championship leader Tyler Reddick and his fellow 2026 race winners Ty Gibbs and Carson Hocevar. Joining them are 2025 race winners Shane Van Gisbergen, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Ross Chastain, Josh Berry, Austin Cindric, Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace and defending All-Star race winner Christopher Bell.

Kyle Busch has an automatic ticket as a former All-Star race winner as does Brad Keselowski as a former series champion. His three runner-up finishes are tied with Ken Schrader and Sterling Marlin for second most all-time without a win.

Reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Larson has won three of the last seven All-Star races.

The first two segments of Sunday’s event are 75-laps followed by the 200-lap finale which includes the 19 drivers locked in, plus six more from the first two segments plus a “Fan Vote.”

Before the race’s green flag, the three-lap qualifying event will feature the always exciting Pit Crew Competition. After making one lap at speed, drivers will pit for a four-tire stop with the fueler “simulating” a fuel stop, before the car returns on track to complete one more lap at speed. The pit stop will be timed from the scoring loop just in front and beyond their stall with the fastest pit crew receiving the $100,000 prize money in addition to the number pit selection.

Joe Gibbs Racing has won two of the last three Pit Crew Competitions with Ty Gibbs’ No. 54 Toyota winning in 2023 and Bell’s No. 20 Toyota the following year. Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Spire Motorsports team is the defending winner.

Even though it doesn’t pay championship points, the All-Star race may very well be what the doctor ordered for Hendrick Motorsports’ Larson and Team Penske’s Logano – both multi-time series champions currently enduring season-long winless streaks.

Larson’s three All-Star wins (joining Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt) are second all-time only to Jimmie Johnson’s four wins. Logano’s current streak of 11 top-10 finishes is the high mark all-time as are his 369 laps led. And Larson and Logano are the only repeat All-Star winners in the last 13 years.

“I think the format will make for good racing,” said Larson, driver of the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. “Dover is the type of track where you need long runs and traffic to produce good racing. I feel like the higher-horsepower, lower-downforce car package will positively impact the on-track product.

“I think the racing will be better, and the drivers will definitely have their hands full. We get to race for a million bucks, and that is something we all love. Hopefully, the No. 5 HendrickCars.com team can figure it out better than everyone else and get back to Victory Lane.”

Hendrick Motorsports is the all-time winningest team in the All-Star Race with 11 trophies. Penske is second with five.

Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion, smiled anticipating the high-stakes brand of All-Star racing this weekend. His strategy was pretty straight-forward.

“You hope you don’t get run over by some of those guys that need to get in and trying to get your best average that you can to set yourself up for the end,” said Blaney, the driver of the No. 12 Team Penske Ford, who announced a contract extension last week.

“I’ll be aware of who is not locked in and you just kind of take into account that this person might be desperate to get in, which they have to do everything they need to do to try to race for a million dollars,” he added. “You just take all of that into account and who you’re racing around and the situation that you’re in.”

Red-Hot Allgaier Looks to Add Another Dover Trophy to Historic Season

The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parks Series heads to Dover Motor Speedway for Saturday’s BetRivers 200 (4 p.m. ET on CW, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and judging by his remarkable seasons statistics, the best “bet” to claim the checkered flag is JR Motorsports driver Justin Allgaier, who not only is dominating the 2026 season, but has the best track record at Dover among his competitors this weekend.

The two-time Dover winner is the only previous winner entered. His six first or second-place finishes all-time at the track ties him with Kyle Busch for second place on that list. Only Logano (seven) has earned more first or second-place finishes at The Monster Mile. And the 2024 series champion Allgaier arrives in Delaware with a series-best five first or second-place finishes already this season.

A three-race winner in 2026, Allgaier’s amazing 155-point lead over Haas Factory Team’s Sheldon Creed atop the standings is greater than the margin between second place Creed and 10th place, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Taylor Gray. And Allgaier’s consistency – finishing top-five in all but two of the 26 stages this season – has been impressive even for a driver already regarded as consistently atop his game.

Add to that, Allgaier’s  JR Motorsports team, as a whole, is riding an incredible 70-race streak of earning at least one top-10 finish – the second longest such streak in series history. Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing holds the top position with 79 straight top-10s.

Certainly Allgaier expects the challenge this weekend from his teammates – Sammy Smith and Rajah Caruth, but reigning series champion, Richard Childress Racing’s Jesse Love brings four consecutive top-10 finishes into the weekend. JGR’s Brent Crews has a streak of five straight top-10s.

Connor Zilisch is the defending Dover race winner, but one of the 2026 season’s four first-time winners, JGR’s Taylor Gray started on pole position, led 49 laps (second only to Zilisch) and finished seventh last year. His JGR teammate Brandon Jones finished third (second best among the fulltime drivers) and finds himself in a very respectful fourth place in the championship coming to Dover.

NASCAR Cup Series regular Ross Chastain will drive the No. 9 JR Motorsports.

Practice followed immediately by Kennametal Pole Qualifying begins at 9:30 a.m. ET on Saturday.  Both sessions will be broadcast on the CW App.

CRAFTSMAN Trucks Return to Dover’s Monster Mile for First Time Since 2020

It’s been six years (2020) since the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series last raced on the Dover high-banks and Friday’s ECOSAVE 200 (5 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is a welcome addition – and challenge – for a fresh group of NASCAR’s best.

Kaden Honeycutt’s work in the defending champion No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota has put him atop the standings by 29 points over Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith as the series officially meets the midpoint of the season. And the Texan Honeycutt arrives for his debut on the Monster Mile fresh off his career first series victory last week on the famed Watkins Glen (N.Y.) road course – the first win for a fulltime Truck Series competitor since Smith’s teammate, Layne Riggs’ victory on the St. Petersburg road course.

Kyle Busch is the winningest Truck Series driver at Dover, claiming four Monster trophies and is the only former winner entered this weekend (No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet). His last victory came in his last start at the track in 2014.

Several fulltime drivers have delivered good previous efforts at Dover with Grant Enfinger and Justin Haley leading the charge with career best third-place finishes – tops among the full-timers. Enfinger actually boasts the best average finish (8.5) among those with at least four Dover starts.

There will also be a strong showing of current and former NASCAR Cup Series regulars in Friday night’s race with defending NASCAR All Star Race winner Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain and Carson Hocevar entered. Of note, former Cup star and current NASCAR on FOX announcer Clint Bowyer, 46, will be making his first start of the year in the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series driving the No. 25 Kaulig Racing Ram.

There are three female drivers on the grid (the most since Knoxville, Tenn. in 2021), including the much-anticipated debut of Dystany Spurlock, 34, a former NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle competitor. Taking the green flag at Dover means she will be the first black woman to compete in one of NASCAR’s three national series. She earned a 10th-place showing in her ARCA Menards Series debut race at Kansas this Spring.

Practice is at 12:30 p.m. Saturday followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 1:40 p.m. – both sessions available on the FOX One app.