Practice #1 : Dover Motor Speedway

• Thursday, April 25th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Truex looks to go back-to-back at his home track

Much remains to be settled in Saturday’s BetRivers 200 at Dover Motor Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and the championship leaders bring a mixed bag of experience and success to the race.

There are only three former Dover winners in the fulltime field. Joe Gibbs Racing’s Ryan Truex led a dominating 124 of the 200 laps to earn an impressive 4.8-second win over Josh Berry last year – starting what would be a Truex sweep of the weekend with his older brother Martin winning the NASCAR Cup Series race a day later.

It’s not only a sentimental highlight for Truex, but a certifiable career highlight. He has four top-10 finishes in seven starts at the track – including the win and a pole position. His 9.1 average finish is tops among all series tracks for the 32-year old New Jersey native who considers Dover as his “home track.”

“Last year was one of the greatest days of my life and I’ll forever be grateful to Joe Gibbs Racing for helping me earn that moment,” said Truex, who will be driving the No. 20 JGR Toyota Saturday. “Considering Dover is also a home track for me, I’m filled with nostalgia, excitement and a ton of optimism towards what we can do on Saturday.”

Reigning series champion and current title contender Cole Custer won the 2019 Dover race and JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier has a pair of wins (2018 and 2020) highlighting a really impressive resume at the concrete mile.

Of course, there are other competitors highly motivated to join this short list too.

Xfinity Series driver standings leader Chandler Smith is coming off a rough 25th-place finish at Talladega last week – his worst showing of the season. But he still holds a 14-point edge over Custer atop the standings. Smith, driver of the No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, has two starts on the Dover mile, has never led a lap and his best finish is 13th-place last year.

Not only does Custer have that former win, he’s got six top-10 finishes in seven starts. The driver of the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford has led 237 laps, including 155 of the 200-lap event in a fourth-place finish in 2019.

Austin Hill, a tough-luck victim of Talladega’s hard racing, has only a pair of Xfinity Series starts at Dover, with a best of fourth place last year. The driver of the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet is right among the top trio, only 16 points behind Smith.

Hill’s RCR teammate, the 19-year old Californian Jesse Love claimed his first series win last week at Talladega. He’ll have an educational experience at Dover, making his first start of any kind at the famously challenging track. He’s proven himself up for the challenge, however. He’s ranked fourth in the championship and boasts the most stage wins (four) in the series.

Perhaps the one to watch this weekend is Allgaier, who is more than ready to put some rough luck behind him in 2024. The veteran driver of the JR Motorsports’ No. 7 Chevrolet has amazing statistics at Dover. He’s led a race best 514 laps, including laps out front in eight of the last nine races.

This week marks the final leg of the four-race Dash 4 Cash incentive. Love, Riley Herbst, Anthony Alfredo and Ryan Sieg will compete for that last $100,000 check from Xfinity – the highest finisher among them on Saturday claiming the money. Sieg won the bonus last week in Talladega in what ultimately turned into a dramatic and exciting late race two-car duel between him and A.J. Allmendinger.

• Dover Motor Speedway
• BetRivers 200
• Pole Winner: Brandon Jones
• Age: 27
• Team : No 9 - Menards/Barracuda Chevrolet
• Owner: Rick Hendrick
• Crew Chief: Phillip Bell
• Brandon Jones won the Pole Award for the BetRivers 200 with a lap of 2295 seconds, 156863 mph
• This is his 10th pole in 279 NASCAR Xfinity Series races
• This is his second pole and third top-10 start in 2024
• This is his third pole in 14 races at Dover Motor Speedway
• Riley Herbst (second) posted his fifth top-10 start of 2024 and his fourth in seven races at Dover Motor Speedway
• Justin Allgaier (third) posted his 15th top-10 start at Dover Motor Speedway It is his seventh in ten races this season
• Jesse Love (eighth) was the fastest qualifying rookie

• Saturday, April 27th, 2024
• NASCAR Wire Service - Holly Cain

Ryan Truex wins second straight Xfinity race at Dover

The hometown favorite, Ryan Truex prevailed in a thrilling double-overtime finish in the BetRivers 200 NASCAR Xfinity Series race Saturday at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway, leading only the two final laps to earn back-to-back victories at the one-mile track.

The New Jersey native and defending race winner started alongside 20-year old Carson Kvapil on the front row for the final overtime re-start then pulled away to take the lead and ultimately the white flag – signaling one lap to go. An accident elsewhere on track officially ended the race under caution.

“I can’t believe it, our car was just good at the end when it mattered, I was so loose all day,” said Truex, 32, the younger brother of NASCAR Cup Series driver Martin Truex Jr.

“Shout out to Carson what an amazing run for what, his second race. I felt a little bad running him up the hill, but you’ve got to take these things when you can.

“I think I held my breath the last two laps. Love these fans. Love this track.”

While Truex hoisted and will certainly savor the Dover trophy, it was also a great day for Kvapil driving the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. The son of former NASCAR driver Travis Kvapil, finished fourth in his only other series start – at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway earlier this year – giving him a very promising pair of top five results in as many Xfinity Series races he’s competed in.

“This is pretty incredible,” Kvapil said. “Definitely felt like we had a fast car going into the day, but to be competing for the win on a green-white-checkered is pretty amazing. We’ve been in this situation before just not quite at this level.”

For much of the final laps, the outcome looked like it was going to be decided between former Richard Childress Racing teammates, Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed. Hill, driver of the No. 21 RCR Chevrolet and Creed, who now drives the No. 18 JGR Toyota restarted door-to-door on the front row on a re-start with 11 laps remaining. As that pair raced aggressively side-by-side for the lead, Kvapil put his Chevy down low, three-wide and drove past the pair to take the lead with eight laps remaining.

On the final restart of regulation- with five laps remaining – Hill and Kvapil restarted alongside one another on the front row, but Hill spun out in tight-quarter action between them in Turn 1, necessitating overtime. Kvapil was able to fend off the field on that first re-start, only to have another caution come out. On the second re-start, he and Truex started alongside each other, but Truex was able to get around Kvapil at the start and pace the field for the final two laps.

The race was briefly halted under red flag conditions for a light rain with 34 laps remaining. Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer – who led a race best 95 of the 208 laps – was leading at the time and then decided to pit for tires and fuel during yellow flag laps just before the cars restarted. He had to restart at the tail end of the field, but the reigning series champion rallied back to a fifth-place finish – able to advance on three ensuing caution periods plus the double overtime.

JR Motorsports’ Sam Mayer finished third, with Creed fourth followed by Custer. Kaulig Racing’s A.J. Allmendinger was sixth, followed by JGR’s Chandler Smith, Kyle Weatherman Racing’s Kyle Weatherman, Our Motorsports’ Anthony Alfredo and Jordan Anderson Racing’s Parker Retzlaff.

The ninth-place finish was especially big for Alfredo, earning him the final Dash 4 Cash $100,000 prize – besting Riley Herbst, Jesse Love and Ryan Sieg – in the last of the four-race incentive program sponsored by Xfinity.

“Really coming into this race, that was our motivation, it wasn’t something to just be a part of, yeah, I mean this was huge,” Alfredo said. “You don’t understand how small our budget is compared to these bigger teams. People overlook it because we’ve been running so well. The last three weeks we’ve been running top-10, and everyone asks, ‘who’s your alliance with.’

“… Coming into this race we knew if we could pull it off, we could invest in our team to be that much better.”

JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier, a two-time Dover winner, won the opening stage of the race and ran up front – his 39 laps in the lead second only to Custer. He also pit in the waning laps and managed to rally back to a 17th-place finish.

• Drivers Entered: 39 (1 drivers will not make the race)
• Laps Scheduled: 200
• Laps Actual: 208 - NASCAR OVERTIME!
• Margin of Victory: Under Caution Seconds
• Time of Race: 2 Hours 22 Minutes 48 Seconds
• Average Speed: 87.395
• Cautions: 10 for 61 laps
• Lead Changes: 11
• Green Flag Passes: 944 (6.4 passes per green flag lap)

• BetRivers 200
• Race Winner: Ryan Truex
• Age: 32
• Team : No 20 - The Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota
• Owner: Joe Gibbs
• Crew Chief: Tyler Allen
• Ryan Truex won the BetRivers 200, his second victory in 95 Xfinity Series races
• This is his first victory and third top-10 finish in 2024
• This is his second victory and fifth top-10 finish in eight races at Dover Motor Speedway
• Carson Kvapil (second) posted his first top-10 finish in one race at Dover Motor Speedway It is his second top-10 finish in 2024
• Sam Mayer (third) posted his third top-10 finish in three races at Dover Motor Speedway
• Shane Van Gisbergen (18th) was the highest finishing rookie
• Chandler Smith leads the point standings by 1 points over Cole Custer