DFS NASCAR: AAA 400 Drive for Autism Track Breakdown

Now that the longest race of the NASCAR season is in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to head to one of the trickiest tracks on the slate in Dover International Speedway. Dover, or the “Monster Mile,” is one of three one-mile tracks the Monster Energy Cup Series visits over the year, with Phoenix and New Hampshire being the other two. This week a key stat I will be looking at is Positional Differential since there are only six drivers with a +6 mark in the field over the last two years, and eight when you include +5 marks.

Track Breakdown

Top-15 Drivers at Dover Historically

Top-15 Drivers at 1-mile Tracks (Since 2015)

Drivers to watch this week:

Jimmie Johnson: Johnson is the best driver on the track this week at Dover. His career wins (10), laps led (3,093), and average finish of 9.53 are second-to-none and his top-fives, top-10s and top-20s are second only to the second guy on this list. He has started to round into form again, after a slow start, having posted 54+ points on Draft Kings in four of the last six points races, including two back-to-back 97-point showings. He is a must play this week, unless he somehow doesn’t physically make it to the track.

Matt Kenseth: Kenseth came on strong last week at Charlotte and comes to Dover having won this race last year to go along with three top-10 finishes. As mentioned above, he has the most career top-fives, top-10s and top-20 finishes at this track of anyone in the field. In four of the last seven points races, Kenseth has earned 50+ on Draft Kings and if he has the car he had last week, he should do that once more.

Kevin Harvick: Harvick is one of four drivers to have a win at Dover in the last four races there, along with having the most laps led in that span with 563.  However that win was his first at Dover and he only have four other top-fives in his career aside from that one. The 563 laps led is more than half of his career total too. While he is good at 1-mile tracks in general, with four wins in the last 13 races at the distance, it may not mean he is a cash play on the Monster Mile.

Kasey Kahne: Kahne has been the best driver from a positional differential standpoint at Dover the last four races with a +11 mark, and has the best average finish at 6.5 in that span. His two top-fives in the last two years here account for all but one of them in his 26 career races at the track. Kahne has only had three races scoring 30 or better on Draft Kings since Phoenix but two came back-to-back at Talladega and Kansas. He could be a mid-tier GPP play depending on practice and qualifying results.

Chase Elliott: The driver of the number-24 Chevrolet has been a top-10 driver here in his only two MECS races on the track with two third place finishes. Before that he had finished 6^th and 7^th in the two Xfinity races he ran here. He put up four straight 40+-point races, on Draft Kings, from California through Bristol. Since however he has had a run of bad luck in points races so despite the nice consistent finishes from him here, he is a top-of-the-budget GPP play.