NASCAR Cup Series at Dover Motor Speedway

Stock car races in the NASCAR Cup Series were held annually at Dover Motor Speedway in Dover, Delaware since 1969 to 2025. The race was named Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400 for sponsorship reasons.

From 1971 through 2020, a second Cup race was held at Dover in the fall.

History

The 2020 race was postponed to August due to the COVID-19 pandemic and became a doubleheader with the second race. Both events were named the Drydene 311 as their race lengths were shortened. For 2021, the race length was restored to 400 miles.

The second race was part of the NASCAR playoffs from their start in 2004 until 2020, when the race was moved to the penultimate weekend of the regular season. The race was left off of the schedule in 2021 as Dover Motorsports, the track's owner, elected to move one of its two dates to Nashville Superspeedway as part of a schedule realignment.

Alex Bowman won the race in 2021 as part of a historic 1-2-3-4 finish for Hendrick Motorsports.

In September 2021, RelaDyne bought the Drydene brand which was the title sponsor of the race. The company added another one of their brands, DuraMAX, to the title sponsor of the race. RelaDyne was also included in the name of the race as a presenting sponsor. As a result, in 2022, the name of the race became the DuraMAX Drydene 400 presented by RelaDyne. In 2023, Würth, which has been a sponsor on Team Penske's NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series cars for a few races each year since 2012, became the title sponsor of the "Monster Mile" race.

Notable moments (summer race)

• 2014: Coming off turn two, A. J. Allmendinger came across Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and got loose. He collected Greg Biffle and both got loose. Biffle went into the wall tail-first, hit Stenhouse, and sent him into the outside wall and headfirst into the inside one on the backstretch. Landon Cassill and Ryan Truex also spun out in Turn 1. This brought out the third caution of the race. The race was then red-flagged, while Justin Allgaier also took damage when he was clipped in the side by Biffle. Kevin Harvick took the lead from Johnson on lap 142 while on lap 157, Jamie McMurray hit a piece on concrete in Turn 2, hit the wall in Turn 3, and brought out the fourth caution. This happened in a similar fashion to Jeff Gordon at Martinsville Speedway in 2004. NASCAR was forced to red flag the race for a second time to fix a hole in the track, while the concrete also damaged the glass covering the crossover bridge that crosses over the top of Turn 2. The race was suspended for 22 minutes, with Harvick holding the lead at the restart. However, just after the restart, Harvick had a tire go down and Matt Kenseth took the lead, Johnson retook the lead on lap 179, and upon completing lap 215, he became the all-time leader in laps led at Dover. Bowman hit the wall for a third time in turn 1 and brought out the fifth caution on lap 218. J. J. Yeley brought out the sixth caution on lap 240 after blowing his engine, while debris brought out the seventh caution with forty laps to go. Casey Mears' right-rear tire came apart and the inner-liner rubber that came off the tire brought out the eighth caution with eight laps to go. Johnson held off a four-lap charge by Brad Keselowski to take his second win of the season – successively, for the 13th time in his career – and 68th of his career. "It is incredible," Johnson said. "This race car was awesome. I just have so much to be thankful for. Chad (crew chief Knaus) told me I'd love the car, and sure enough, from the time we unloaded the car, he was right." Keselowski described his day as "up and down" and that his car did not progress as much as he had liked until the halfway mark of the race.
• 2015: For the first few laps, Truex Jr. kept Hamlin from getting a big lead, but as the field caught the tail end of the field, Hamlin jumped to a bigger lead. Eventually, Truex Jr. took back the lead on lap 145. The second round of pit stops began on lap 150 when Clint Bowyer hit pit road. Truex Jr. surrendered the lead to pit on lap 158 and gave it to Hamlin. He pitted on lap 160 and handed the lead to teammate Carl Edwards. He pitted on lap 162 and handed the lead to Dale Earnhardt Jr. The second caution flew on lap 163 when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. had a tire blow out and slammed the wall in turn 2. David Gilliland was tagged for speeding on pit road during the green flag stops and was forced to serve a drive-through penalty. Edwards was tagged for taking equipment out of the pit box after the wrench used to adjust the track bar got stuck in the hole and restarted the race from the tail end of the field. The race restarted on lap 169 with Truex Jr. in the lead. The third caution of the race flew on lap 176 for a 3-car wreck on the front stretch. This began when Trevor Bayne while exiting turn 4, was moving up the track and got turned by Michael Annett. He overcorrected, turned down, and hit the inside wall. Annett continued to ride the wall before getting rear-ended by Allgaier. Annett continued on, but Allgaier did not. While Truex opted not to pit, most of the cars on the lead lap behind him did. The race restarted with two laps to go at a scheduled green-white-checkered finish, Johnson shot ahead of teammate Kasey Kahne and held off Harvick to score his tenth career win at Dover. He became the fifth driver to have 10 or more wins at a single track.
• 2016: The race at Dover moved up two weeks before the All-Star Race at Charlotte, A major multi-car wreck occurred after their restart just past the start/finish line brought out the 11th caution of the race. Johnson's car stalled out, fell backward, and caused an 18-car wreck. Johnson, Truex, Harvick, McMurray, Newman, A. J. Allmendinger, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Hamlin, Biffle, Casey Mears, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Clint Bowyer, Trevor Bayne, Paul Menard, and Michael McDowell were all collected in the wreck. Johnson said afterward that as soon as he "went from second and tried to go into third, I kind of got up into the neutral gate of the transmission and it didn't even want to go to third," Johnson said. "It stopped before it ever went to third. And then I tried fourth and third and eventually, I got hit from behind...I thought maybe I missed a shift, but it wouldn't go into gear. Martin was good and patient with me. He gave me a couple of opportunities to try to find gear but it just locked out and wouldn't go into gear for some reason." The subsequent cleanup forced the red flag to fly. The red flag was lifted after 11 minutes and 22 seconds, The race restarted with 35 laps to go. Despite a hard-fought battle towards the finish with Larson and Chase Elliott, Kenseth – who assumed the lead after the multi-car wreck with 46 laps to go – drove on to score the victory.
• 2021: For the first time since 1970, the track would only host one race instead of two. Alex Bowman bested his teammate Kyle Larson on pit road to win Dover's lone race of 2021. Bowman's victory capped off Hendrick Motorsports finishing 1-2-3-4. It is just the fourth time this was accomplished, and first since Roush-Fenway Racing did it at Homestead in 2005. While Bowman won and Larson was second, Chase Elliott finished 3rd, and William Byron finished 4th.
• 2023: The race was postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain. Ross Chastain made contact with Brennan Poole, who spun and got into Kyle Larson. Martin Truex Jr. held off Chastain on a late-race restart to score his fourth win at Dover and end a 54-race winless streak. Truex also completed a family sweep of the weekend as his brother Ryan Truex won the Xfinity race the Saturday before.

Notable races (fall race)

• 1971: Bobby Allison dominated the race until a lug bolt broke on a pit stop, putting Richard Petty into the lead in the final 100 laps en route to the win.
• 1975: Richard Petty put the entire field two laps down until at Lap 350 he ran over debris from a backmarker's blown engine that broke a tie rod. Petty spent eight laps in the pits getting a new tie rod and came out six laps down. While Lennie Pond blew his engine Petty erased all six laps, but needed a late yellow when Buddy Arrington stopped on the track with fifteen to go. Petty breezed to the win, leaving runner-up Dick Brooks angry at Arrington, who'd recently purchased a transporter from Petty Enterprises: "I guess Arrington needed that truck paid for."
• 1976: Cale Yarborough lost two laps on two separate occasions and made them up en route to the win.
• 1977: Benny Parsons dominated the race after Lap 250.
• 1978: Bobby Allison won after a recent visit to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup.
• 1979: Richard Petty, Donnie Allison, and Cale Yarborough battled over the final 30 laps; Petty edged Allison by a hood at the stripe.
• 1980: Darrell Waltrip took the win, his final for DiGard Racing.
• 1981: Neil Bonnett stormed to his second win in the 1981 season's last three races as hard-luck Harry Gant led 178 laps but blew his engine with 63 laps to go.
• 1983: Bobby Allison edged Geoff Bodine for the win, his sixth of the season en route to his only Winston Cup title.
• 1986: Ricky Rudd took his first Dover win as title contenders Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond crashed and raced each other with damaged race cars despite being multiple laps down.
• 1991: Multiple crashes put Harry Gant alone on the lead lap for his third straight win of September 1991.
• 1992: Ricky Rudd edged Bill Elliott as Alan Kulwicki crashed, putting him seemingly out of the season point chase.
• 1993: Tire failures and crashes, including a multi-car melee detonated when Rusty Wallace hammered another car into the path of the leaders, plagued the 1993 500 won by Wallace.
• 1995: In a race with only five yellows flags, Jeff Gordon and Bobby Hamilton dominated en route to a 1-2 finish.
• 1996: Gordon and Dale Earnhardt battled amid an epidemic of crashes. Ernie Irvan crashed ahead of Derrike Cope and crew chief Larry McReynolds attacked Cope in the garage area. A three-car melee led to a near-brawl on the track between Jimmy Spencer and Wally Dallenbach Jr. Following this race NASCAR raised the sanction fee for a 500-mile race, forcing Dover to cut back to 400 miles.
• 1998: Mark Martin won while Matt Kenseth finished sixth in his first career start; Kenseth substituted for Bill Elliott, who missed the race for his father's funeral.
• 2000: Tony Stewart went on to win the season sweep at Dover. This race also marked the first career start for driver Kurt Busch who replaced driver Chad Little in the John Deere Ford.
• 2001: In the first NASCAR sanctioned Cup race following the September 11 attacks, (the previous race scheduled for New Hampshire Speedway was postponed until the end of the season) a silent lap 3, which was a season-long scheduled event in memory of Dale Earnhardt who had died in a crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, was changed to include the memory of the victims of the attacks. Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the race and celebrated by doing a Polish victory lap while holding an American flag in salute. Notably, the white flag was not waved on the final lap, causing some confusion with the television broadcasting team.
• 2006: Jeff Burton broke a 175 race winless streak passing Matt Kenseth with 8 laps to go. This was a very emotional win for Jeff.
• 2009: Joey Logano flipped 8 times in turn 3 after being tapped by Tony Stewart, though a couple cars ahead of Logano had braked going into the corner. Logano suffered no injuries from the wreck.
• 2012: Brad Keselowski's win marked the last win for Dodge.
• 2013: Jimmie Johnson held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. to take his eighth win at Dover, breaking a tie with Richard Petty and Bobby Allison for most all-time wins at the track. For Johnson, it allowed him to redeem himself for the restart line violation (when he'd jumped Juan Pablo Montoya on a late restart with 20 laps to go) that had cost him a shot at winning the race in June.
• 2017: Chase Elliott dominated the final stage of the race and was on the way to his first career win until Kyle Busch passed him coming to the white flag. Kyle Busch won the race for his second consecutive win and fourth of the season.
• 2018: After Chase Elliott lost the race the year before in the closing laps, he found redemption by fending off Denny Hamlin in a green-white-checkered finish on older tires. It was Elliott's first win on an oval, since his first Cup win was on a road course.

Past winners

• 1974: Race shortened due to energy crisis.
• 2007, 2019, 2022, and 2023: Races postponed from Sunday to Monday due to rain.
• 2015, 2017, and 2025: Races extended due to NASCAR overtime.
• 2020: Race postponed from May 3 and ran as a twin-race event with regularly scheduled fall race on August 23 due to COVID-19 pandemic. Both races shortened to 500 kilometres (310.686 mi).

Multiple winners (drivers)

Multiple winners (teams)

Manufacturer wins

Past winners (fall race)

• 1997: Race shortened to 400 miles (643.738 km).
• 2005 and 2018: Race extended due to a NASCAR Overtime finish.
• 2020: Race shortened to 500 kilometres (310.686 mi) due to schedule changes resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Multiple winners (drivers, fall race)

Multiple winners (teams, fall race)

Manufacturer wins (fall race)

External links

• race results at Racing-Reference