Dover International Speedway - Definition and Overview

Dover International Speedway is a NASCAR race track located near Dover, Delaware. It is unusual in several respects. It is a concrete track; most NASCAR tracks are asphalt. It is co-located with a horse racing track, Dover Downs, and in fact is sometimes also referred to by this name. It is also exactly one mile long; technically this means that it is neither a superspeedway nor a short track. The speedway is also notoriously hard on cars, and its standard nickname is The Monster Mile. The horse track is part of an extensive entertainment complex including other forms of gambling; at one time both it and the speedway were owned by the publicly-traded Dover Downs Entertainment, but they have since been split into two separate enterprises, partly at the encouragement of NASCAR. At one time the Winston Cup races held here were 500 miles long until a NASCAR rules change limited 500 mile races to being held only at tracks over a mile in length; the current Nextel Cup races here are 400 miles long.

The same company owning Dover Downs also owns several other racetracks, including Nashville Superspeedway; it has been suggested that one of the two current Cup races held there could be shifted to Nashville but this seems unlikely as both current Cup races at Dover are easily sold out. The Dover ownership is one of only three publicly-held ownership groups of NASCAR tracks, the other two being International Speedway Corporation, controlled by NASCAR's founding France family and owners of the Talladega and Daytona tracks, among others, and Speedway Motorsports, led by Bruton Smith and H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler, which owns Lowe's Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway, among others. Aside from these three ownership groups, NASCAR tracks are privately held by one or a few individuals.

See also: List of NASCAR race tracks

Records

• NASCAR qualifying: Rusty Wallace, 159.964 mph, 1999
• NASCAR race: Mark Martin, 132.719 mph, September 21, 1997

External link

• Dover International Speedway Official Site (http://www.doverspeedway.com/)