WATCH: NASCAR’s Chase Briscoe after Cup Series win at Pocono
Briscoe had to hold off the track’s all-time wins leader in Denny Hamlin to secure the victory.
A year after NASCAR shifted Dover Motor Speedway to the summer portion of its racing calendar for the first time in decades, more changes could be in store at the Monster Mile.
Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic reported on Aug. 14 that as NASCAR works to finalize its 2026 Cup Series schedule there is an “increasing possibility” it will move its All-Star Race to Dover. If that happens, it will free a spot for North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina to gain a Cup points race.
NASCAR is targeting the third week of August to release the full 2026 Cup schedule, Bianchi reported. The 2025 schedule was announced in the final week of August last year.
There are 36 NASCAR Cup Series races in which drivers accumulate points toward the series championship. The All-Star race is one of a few non-points exhibitions that do not count toward the season total.
The All-Star race is typically held in May a week before Memorial Day weekend. Bianchi reported that whichever track – Dover or North Wilkesboro – hosts a points race would do so in the summer.
The company that owns Dover Motor Speedway, Speedway Motorsports, controls several other tracks, including North Wilkesboro. The North Carolina track has not hosted a Cup points race since 1996.
North Wilkesboro has hosted the All-Star race since 2023.
The Monster Mile had been the site of two NASCAR races annually in the spring and fall from 1971 through 2019 but has had just one race a year since 2021. It hosted a spring race from 2021-24.
This year, it hosted the AutoTrader EchoPark Automotive 400 race on July 20, bringing summer racing to Dover for the first time since Richard Petty won Dover’s inaugural Mason-Dixon 300 NASCAR event on July 6, 1969.
Denny Hamlin won the race in a double-overtime finish.
Speedway purchased Dover Motorsports, which owned the Dover track and Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 2021 in a deal valued at $131.5 million.
Brandon Holveck reports on high school sports for The News Journal. Contact him at bholveck@delawareonline.com.
