'Monster' madness
Drivers: Delaware track is deserving of its reputation
By RICK MINTER Cox News Service

Photos by NASCAR Jeff Burton leads the way en route to victory in last year's fall race at Dover International Speedway. Burton (below, in Dover's Victory Lane) says the "Monster Mile" is one of the physically demanding tracks on the circuit.

NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow proved to be a handful for most Nextel Cup drivers a couple of weeks back at Darlington Raceway. Few survived the weekend without putting a "Darlington Stripe" or two on their cars because they momentarily lost control and brushed the outside wall.

Now the Cup guys and their COTs are preparing for the next challenge, 400 laps on Dover International Speedway, the "Monster Mile." It's shaping up to be another weekend of walldodging.

Jeff Burton, who won last fall on the highbanked concrete oval at Dover, told reporters at Lowe's Motor Speedway last week that both tracks are deserving of their monikers.

"Darlington's nickname ["The Track Too Tough To Tame"] and Dover's nickname are the two most fitting of all the race tracks," he said. "Dover is just a physically demanding racetrack. It's very difficult to handle well there. When you hit, you hit hard.

"It's one of the most difficult race tracks we run on. The corners are really wide, but the straightaways aren't. It's just a really tough racetrack."

Making it even tougher this time around is the fact that the race will be run with the COT - its sixth run of the season - and it's being done without the benefit of a test session, other than normal prerace practice.

Drivers had been scheduled to test there two weeks ago, but a rain delay at Darlington forced officials to cancel the two-day affair. It shouldn't pose a problem for the teams from Hendrick Motorsports, which has won all five of the COT races.

Burton, who drives for Richard Childress Racing and finished second in the first COT race at Bristol, said he's not concerned, either.

"Certainly the test would have been beneficial," he said. "At the same time,we were able to go to Darlington, and I thought that for the most part, all the teams did a really nice job of responding to the challenges that Darlington threw at us without a test. ...We're all a little bit nervous about it, but I think we'll be OK."

Kurt Busch is predicting a "tough weekend" at Dover as drivers try to find a combination that will apply to what they learned from the high speeds at Darlington and from the high-banked concrete oval at Bristol in March.

"It's going to be a tough balance," Busch said. "We've only got the normal practice session to science it out, so we're definitely going to be a mix of who's going to be on and who's going to be off with a limited practice time."

Reader Comments

No comments have been posted. Be the first!

Other Stories With Comments:
Article	Comments
Land transfer tax-- let the voters decide	1