NASCAR to try, try again Monday at Dover
DOVER, Del. — Chase Elliott missed so many races because of a broken leg that NASCAR’s most popular driver likely needs to win one just to make the playoffs.
How does a repeat rainout victory at the Monster Mile sound?
Elliott picked up the Cup Series win on a Monday last season at Dover Motor Speedway and he’ll get another shot this year after rain again postponed Sunday’s race.
The race on the concrete, mile track will start at noon.
Rain is starting to become a monster of a problem for a track that once hosted two race weekends a year but is down to one each season. Dover will hold a Monday race for the just fifth time — out of 105 Cup events — but third since 2019.
Martin Truex Jr. has won twice at Dover on Mondays.
Elliott would like to join him on that list.
“It’s been a year since we’ve been here and obviously a lot can happen in that amount of time,” Elliott said. “We’ll get on track and kind of see where we stack up and go from there.”
Elliott has raced only four times this season and missed six races with a broken left tibia that he suffered in a March 3 snowboarding accident.
The 27-year-old driver has vowed he won’t stop snowboarding or any of the other off-track activities he enjoys, even after teammate Alex Bowman suffered a fractured vertebra in a sprint car crash this week. Bowman will miss at least the next three Cup races.
Hendrick Motorsports general manager Jeff Andrews said there were no immediate plans to change the team’s policy and prohibit its drivers from engaging in racing in outside series or participating in potentially dangerous physical activities.
But the team could reconsider if another outside accident happens to Elliott, Bowman, William Byron or Kyle Larson.
Elliott, coping with some lingering effects of the accident, said he’s just “pushing forward” in the No. 9 Chevrolet. He finished 12th last week at Talladega.
“I’m not going on runs or doing sprinting drills, but I feel fine,” he said. “I don’t feel like it impacts me in the car at this point. It’s just one of those things where you’re going to have good days, you’re going to have days that you don’t get around great. That’s just going to be part of it here for a little while, I think.”
Elliott arrived at Dover with a new look after shaving his bushy mustache, which had extended from under his nose past the corners of the mouth and sprouted downward.
“I woke up the other morning and I was just kind of tired of eating breakfast and having to clean it off,” Elliott said. “So I went upstairs, took a shower and off it went. That much thought went into it. It was that simple. It was time.”
THE LINEUP
Kyle Busch starts on the pole Monday. Christopher Bell joins him on the first row.
Busch, enjoying a successful first season at Richard Childress Racing, won last week’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Kyle Larson is the 5-1 favorite to win, per FanDuel Sportsbook.
SILENT BOB INDEED
Silent Bob got silenced.
“Clerks” filmmaker and actor Kevin Smith was scheduled to serve as grand marshal for Sunday’s race and give the command for drivers to star their engines. That’s a mouthful for the actor who popularized the Silent Bob character in a number of his projects.
The Monster Among Men also had his scheduled pace lap at the Monster Mile rained out.
WWE star Braun Strowman, who sports the catchy nickname, did at least get to flex his pythons and pose with the Miles the Monster trophy.
Strowman can’t stick around because he has to appear Monday night on “Raw.”
“I’d rather drive a race car than get dropped on my head,” Strowman said.
