After a week alone in Kentucky, the NASCAR Xfintiy Series thunders into Dover, Delaware to Dover International Speedway for the 31st annual Drive Sober 200, the second race in the Round of 12 in the chase. 40 teams have made their way to Dover to compete for 40 spots on Saturday.
The field for Dover is graced with the presence of Sprint Cup Series drivers. The five Sprint Cup drivers participating on Saturday include Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Matt DiBenedetto, Joey Logano, and Josh Wise.
Dover International Speedway is known as “The Monster Mile”. It is a one-mile concrete oval. The straightaways are banked at nine degrees with the turns banked at 24 degrees.
This will be the 66th race at Dover. There have been 42 different pole winners with Darrell Wallace Jr as the youngest and Dick Trickle as the oldest pole winner. 43 different drivers have graced victory lane with Casey Atwood as the youngest and Harry Gant as the oldest winner. Seven drivers have won from the pole position with Joey Logano being the last driver to do so back in 2013. Logano also holds the race record at 131.219 mph set back in 2013. Ky. Busch holds the qualifying record at 158.288 mph set back in 2010.
After dismal performances by many chase drivers at Kentucky, Elliott Sadler tops the grid with his win last weekend. The bottom three of the grid are Justin Allgaier, Brennan Poole, and Blake Koch.
In their weekly press releases, drivers are excited about the return to Dover.
“With the win last weekend, we can afford to go out and race, be aggressive, and maybe try some different things to get ready for the second round of the Chase. We have a lot of momentum on our side right now and we are looking forward to getting to Dover this weekend and having some fun,” said Sadler
“Last week I made a mistake laying it all out on the line for a win, but we definitely had the speed and that’s encouraging heading in to this weekend. At this point, we’ll need to focus a little more on points racing and go to Dover with that mindset and try to go out and get a solid finish. I think we can get a top-five finish the next two weeks and hopefully that will put us in a good position to move on to the next round and keep us in contention for the championship,” said Erik Jones.
“Our Lilly Diabetes/American Diabetes Association team had a really solid run last weekend at Kentucky. I’m so proud of their effort – we never gave up that whole race. I think this weekend at Dover we can keep building on that momentum. We have to have a solid run to keep ourselves in Chase contention,” said Ryan Reed, who will be making his 100th NASCAR Xfinity Series start on Saturday.
Qualifying for the Drive Sober 200 will be at 11:30AM EST on CNBC. The race will be at 3:00PM EST on NBCSN and Motor Racing Network.
- Busch Sweeps at Bristol - August 20, 2017
- Busch Wins UNOH 200 From Pole - August 17, 2017
- Busch Scores NCWTS Bristol Pole - August 16, 2017