Jimmie Johnson (48) is the all-time winningest NASCAR Cup driver at Dover.
Thirty-six drivers have won during Dover’s first 99 races, but only eight are racing this weekend. Seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson leads everyone with 11 victories, his most recent anywhere coming at Dover in spring 2017. Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Newman and Kyle Busch have won three races; Kevin Harvick has won two; and Chase Elliott, Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski have won one. Overall, Johnson’s 11 victories easily top the seven of retired Hall of Famers Bobby Allison and Petty and the five of the late David Pearson, another Hall of Fame driver.
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Little-known Matt Kenseth began his (almost certainly) Hall of Fame career at Dover in September 1998. He was recruited by owner/driver Bill Elliott to drive the No. 94 McDonald’s Ford while Elliott attended the funeral of his father, George, in Georgia. Kenseth started 16th and finished a credible lead-lap sixth behind Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Jeremy Mayfield, Bobby Labonte and Rusty Wallace.
All told, Kenseth made 38 more starts at Dover over the next 20 seasons. He had one pole, three victories, 17 top-five finishes and 24 top-10s. His last appearance was at Homestead-Miami Speedway in the fall of 2018, when he started 28th and finished 20th in the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing. (He and Trevor Bayne shared the ride for much of that season).
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Only three drivers – all of them former Cup Series champions – have won three consecutive races at Dover. David Pearson did it in 1972-73, Rusty Wallace in 1993-94 and Jeff Gordon in 1995-1996.
Nine drivers have won back-to-back races: Richard Petty, Jimmie Johnson and Cale Yarborough did it twice, and Bobby Allison, Harry Gant, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Bill Elliott and Dale Earnhardt did it once.
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The trivia answer is Jody Ridley and Martin Truex Jr. The question is, who are the only drivers to earn their first career Cup Series victory at Dover?
Ridley, the 1980 Rookie of the Year with 140 Cup starts over parts of 11 seasons, won the spring 1981 Mason-Dixon 500 in Junie Donlavey’s No. 90 Ford. He inherited the lead when several front-runners fell out late, and he won ahead of Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, D.K. Ulrich and Ricky Rudd.
About 26 years later, in June 2007, Truex Jr. became the track’s second breakthrough winner. Driving the No. 1 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc., the New Jersey native led 216 of 400 laps in the Autism Speaks 400 for the first of his 26 Cup Series victories. He beat Ryan Newman, Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth in the weather-rescheduled Monday race.
Many people remember that day not primarily because of Truex Jr.’s popular victory, but because it was announced around the halfway point that former NASCAR president Bill France Jr. had died that afternoon in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won at Dover in 2001 in the first race after the 9-11 attacks.
No surprise here: three of NASCAR’s most memorable victory celebrations have involved an Earnhardt.
In February 1998, almost every team owner, driver, crewman and fan rejoiced when Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500. After 20 years of trying and coming close so many times, it’s fair to say that hardly anyone begrudged the racing icon hoisting the one trophy he so desperately wanted.
In July 2001, five months after his father died in the Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Pepsi 400 back at DIS. It was his first victory since his father’s death, and the irony of where he won wasn’t lost on the racing community. His memorable and emotional victory celebration with teammate Michael Waltrip in the speedway’s trioval grass was one for the books.
Two months after that Daytona moment came Junior’s soul-stirring victory in the September 2001 MBNA 400 at Dover. It was the first major NASCAR race after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. With travel virtually impossible that week, NASCAR moved the Sept. 16 race in New Hampshire to the end of the season, on Thanksgiving weekend.
NASCAR and Dover made the Sept. 21-22-23 event one big flag-waving, patriotic, red, white and blue lovefest. Tens of thousands of small, medium and large American flags were distributed to fans and competitors. Lee Greenwood was there to sing “God Bless The USA.” That famous rhythmic chant – U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A – never seemed to fade. Appropriately, every branch of the armed services and had a part in pre-race ceremonies. And, of course, a flyover.
The jam-packed place went absolutely bonkers when Dale Earnhardt Jr. dominated and won in a Budweiser-sponsored Chevrolet. Just when you thought that was enough, he nosed his car into the outside wall near the flagstand and did perhaps the most emotional stationary burnout of all time.
U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A, indeed.
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Dover is part of the reason why they once called Harry Gant “Mr. September.”
In 1991, Gant won the Sept. 1 Labor Day weekend race at Darlington over Ernie Irvan. A week later, he beat Davey Allison in the Sept. 7 short-track race at Richmond. On Sept. 15, he won by a full lap at Dover over Geoffrey Bodine. And on Sept. 22, he beat Brett Bodine in another short-track race at Martinsville. The streak ended on Sept. 29 when he finished second to Dale Earnhardt at North Wilkesboro.
Gant won twice more in his 18-victory career, the next season at Dover and Michigan. He lost his last 70 starts before retiring after the 1994 season.
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