{"id":676721,"date":"2026-05-18T03:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T03:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/676721\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T03:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T03:42:15","slug":"it-was-a-good-dover-race-but-not-the-nascar-all-star-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/676721\/","title":{"rendered":"It was a good Dover race, but not the NASCAR All-Star Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway would have been a fine race if it were not weighted by the expectations of the All-Star Race name.<\/p>\n

This was the first race at The Monster Mile with the increased horsepower and reduced downforce package. Combined with a light application of resin from top to bottom and the use of a tire dragon all weekend, this was the best racing product at Dover in the five-year history of the NextGen car.<\/p>\n

That will get lost in the shuffle because NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports needed to pigeon-hole the All-Star Race somewhere at least for a year after giving North Wilkesboro Speedway a points race.<\/p>\n

The end result was an All-Star Race that did not remotely feel like an All-Star Race during the day in Delaware with a full field taking the green flag before eliminations and inversions. The dynamic was best summed up by runner-up Chase Briscoe.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it was because it was during the day,\u201d Briscoe surmised. \u201cI don\u2019t know. All weekend it didn\u2019t feel like an All-Star Race. It felt like a normal points race. We had practice, which was cool. I\u2019ve never driven out of the garage in my career so that was unique, being able to practice that way again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat definitely didn\u2019t feel like an All-Star Race just because it was new. It definitely didn\u2019t feel like one for whatever reason. Now, the reward for winning definitely feels like an All-Star Race but the race itself — it was so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll-Star Races typically are like the shortest race of the year. I felt like it was a Coke 600 or something or the Southern 500. It took forever. Like, you\u2019ll have that feeling next weekend or the next, that come lap 100 or 200, man, we\u2019re only a quarter of the way or halfway into the race. We got past both 75 lap runs and it was like \u2018man, we have another 200 laps?\u2019 It was just a long race.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a long race because NASCAR and SMI didn\u2019t want to take laps away from those who attend races at Dover every year. To simulate an \u2018open race\u2019 dynamic, the first half featured a full field with an invert and eliminations.<\/p>\n

Basically, it was The Open and All-Star Heats combined, and race winner Denny Hamlin doesn\u2019t even know when the race technically began \u2013 with the first lap or the final segment at Lap 150.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen y’all print off a sheet, is it going to have 36 cars, or is it going to have 26,\u201d Hamlin asked NASCAR officials, referencing the eliminations.<\/p>\n

26.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, so I think we should know when the All-Star Race starts,\u201d Hamlin said with a laugh. \u201cLet’s start there first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamlin thought the racing was good at Dover today too because there was no shortage of passing during the inversions.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou had the extra horsepower too,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cSo you’re going in the corner at a slower rate of speed, so the tires are the one that has to make up the difference for grip you have lost. Then you’re applying more power. When you put the throttle down, it makes the car further out of control.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you could see, we were running all over the racetrack. I thought NASCAR and the whole team did a great job preparing the track as good as they possibly could. \u00a0Yeah, it’s as good as you’ll get.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the ultimate conclusion here is that the racing at Dover was made better, but this isn\u2019t the long-term home for the All-Star Race, as best summed up by Hamlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst thing is let’s give Dover their points race back and then let’s figure out where we’re going to go, and then figure out the format,\u201d Hamlin said. \u201cLet’s start there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from All-Star Race: Sunday<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway would have been a fine race if it were not weighted by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[44436,248716,49,48,4960,248715,634,3628,82],"class_list":["post-676721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-all-star-race","tag-but-not-the-nascar-all-star-race","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dover-international-speedway","tag-it-was-a-good-dover-race","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}