Nascar Cup Series

Saturday Dover Motor Speedway Notebook

Notebook Items:

• Busch Historical Favorite
• Motivation No Problem For Reddick
• Milestone 600th Start For Logano

July 19, 2025

By Holly Cain

NASCAR Wire Service

Practice and Busch Light Pole Qualifying for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, HBO Max, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway was cancelled due to inclement weather Saturday afternoon.

Through a metric established by NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott was awarded pole position for Sunday’s race. He’ll start out front in the No. 9 Hendrick Chevrolet alongside Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe in the No. 19 Toyota.

NASCAR combines owners’ points, a driver’s finishing position in the preceding race, and his fastest lap time in that race to rank the teams and establish a lineup when qualifying is not possible.

Championship points leader, Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron will start fifth Sunday sharing the third row with Trackhouse Racing rookie Shane van Gisbergen, who has won the last two races (road course events at Chicago and Sonoma, Calif.) coming into the Dover 400-lapper.

Defending Dover winner, Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin will roll off 13th. Three-time Dover winner, Richard Childress Racing’s Kyle Busch will start 10th.

Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, a three-time race winner in 2025 who leads NASCAR’s Playoff Standings, will start 25th. The 2019 Dover winner has only a single top-five (fifth place at Michigan) and three top-10s in the eight races since his last victory at Kansas in May.

With a new tire compound for cars this weekend, drivers were hoping for some laps on track. “Brand new tire or not, practice is always important,’’ Larson said, acknowledging he is hopeful his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports team can return to early-season form this week at the famed, “Monster Mile.”

“I wouldn’t deny that we’re in a slump, results kind of show that,’’ Larson said. “But I think some of it has been a little bit out of our control and some of it execution with a car that’s been a little bit off on speed. But confidence in our 5 team is strong and hopefully we can turn it around at Dover.

Busch Historical Favorite

Busch’s three victories at Dover Motor Speedway make him the winningest driver in Sunday’s field. And not only does he have an enviable assortment of trophies, but his 14 top-five and 22 top-10 finishes are also best in the field.

Certainly, it’s a healthy dose or statistical feathers-in-your-cap, but the driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet is still racing for his first trophy in the series since June, 2023.

The two-time series champion is ranked 18th in the Playoff standings – only 37 points behind the all-important 16th place position currently held by Bubba Wallace; and only three points behind Ryan Preece, the first driver outside the cutoff line.

Busch conceded Saturday that he’s well aware of his situation. And encouraged by back-to-back top-10 finishes at the Chicago and Sonoma, Calif. road courses in the two weeks heading to Dover’s famed, Monster Mile.

“I mean, you’re obviously looking at it [the standings] every week,’’ said Busch, who has a combined nine additional wins in the NASCAR Xfinity and CRAFTSMAN Truck Series at Dover too. “I think we leave probably the fifth race of the year looking at points, like where we’re at and what are we doing?

“But honestly, points take care of themselves when you run good. Results are what matters. Being able to get stage points and being able to get good finishes will all equate to higher point totals and you not having to look at the sheet. So obviously with a ‘win and you’re in’, you really don’t have to pay any attention to it.

“That’s certainly on our radar right now. We’ve had a couple of good weeks where we’ve made up some of the deficit. I feel like there is potential and opportunity for us to continue that way, and we want to continue to climb that way and put ourselves above the cut for making the playoffs.

Motivation No Problem For Reddick

The 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Regular Season champion Tyler Reddick has advanced to the In-Season Challenge semifinals this week – and will be racing head-to-head with fellow Toyota driver, Ty Gibbs.

Reddick said the excellence his team has shown in the inaugural head-to-head midseason $1 million-to-win tournament has been enjoyable. And now possibly quite profitable. But more importantly for Reddick, the success in recent weeks is a good omen for his No. 45 23XI Racing team, which is still looking for its first win of the season after tying a career-best single-season mark last year with three victories.

“I think it’s fair to say, I think we are to some degree, frustrated we haven’t won, for sure but we’ve been using it as motivation to finding speed,’’ allowed Reddick, who is ranked 13th in the standings – tops among the four drivers still without a victory yet. “We haven’t backed away from fact we haven’t won a race, we’re using it to motivate ourselves right now.

As for the In-Season Challenge, Reddick smiled about his face-off with Gibbs. 

“The last three weeks I feel like we’ve been racing around each other a bunch, so I don’t know if I’m going to need any [real time updates) and I feel like that’s going to continue,’’ said Reddick, who will roll off fourth Sunday.

Reddick said he saw a statistic this week that he and Gibbs – who starts ninth – have run near in close proximity for more than 490 laps of racing at Dover in the last two years.

“It does feel like every time I’ve been here to Dover since Ty’s been in the Cup Series I can at least see him on the race track when I’m making laps,’’ Reddick said, adding, “I feel like we’re going to be around each other a lot this weekend and hopefully have some good hard racing.”

Interesting three of the four drivers still competing for the In-Season Challenge paycheck are named Ty – Reddick, Gibbs and Ty Dillon (who starts 21st) in the other half of the bracket.

“Has John Hunter changed his name yet?’’ Reddick joked of John Hunter Nemechek, the only driver still in the bracket not named Ty. The Legacy Motor Club driver will start 28th.

The In-Season Challenge grand finale between the winner of the Reddick-Gibbs and Nemechek-Dillon match-ups will be next week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Milestone 600th Start For Logano

Three-time and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano will be making his 600th series start this weekend at Dover – a significant statistic considering he’s only 35-years-old.

The youngest in NASCAR history to achieve that mark, Logano smiles recalling that his second ever NASCAR Cup Series start at Dover – 16 years ago as a 19-year-old and how it ended with a dramatic fashion – his car flipping. But for the popular Team Penske driver, the part of the statistic that “hits home” is that he’s been able to have such a successful career, noting he essentially grew up in front of everyone and all the challenges that entailed.

The three championship trophies in NASCAR’s premier series would indicate it’s all worked out well for the Connecticut-native, who in 2009 became the youngest NASCAR Cup Series race winner driver in history, hoisting the lobster at just 19-years-old.

“At first glance, I said, well, it’s just ‘starts,’ “Logano said of reaching the big milestone number this week. “But then when you start thinking about it, to be able to be around in a sport as an athlete competing at a top level for 16-plus years, and hitting 600 starts, it’s pretty incredible to have a career that long. It’s something that I take some pride in. I’m proud of that, to be able to hit this marker.

“It’s a lot of starts. I remember my 300th start and I think it was Kenseth at the time, maybe it was Truex as well, that weren’t too far from 600 and I thought, ‘Geez, that’s double the amount of races as me. That’s crazy.’ But here I am, so it went by pretty quick. It’s been a heck of a ride. This sport has been awesome to me and my family and I’m proud to be a part of it.”