Nascar Odds Dover 2018
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Derrike Cope heard it all when he scored the most unthinkable of NASCAR upsets and zipped past Dale Earnhardt -- who blew a tire with a mile to go -- to win the 1990 Daytona 500.
Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett has announced a massive amount of funding for the V.I. According to the congresswoman, the funds are being provided as part of the recent coronavirus relief package passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump. NASCAR DFS: 2021 Cup Series Primer. Matt Selz gives you the perfect primer for the 2021 NASCAR season talking some of the terms to know, driver changes, schedule changes, and season-long contest. Austin Dillon began his full-time Cup Series career by winning the pole for the 2014 Daytona 500, and he won The Great American Race in 2018 after a last lap bump-and-dump of Aric Almirola.
He was lucky. The win was fluky.
The 62-year-old Cope promised he’d never listened to critics when he beat “The Intimidator” and he sure isn’t about to start now -- even at +20000 odds -- when he drives in Sunday’s Daytona 500 in what he says will be his final race.
“After you win it, you feel you can go back and win it again,” Cope said. “Every time you go there, you feel that way. I still feel that way.”
The competitive feeling stirs as the sexagenarian makes his first Daytona 500 start since 2004 and 15th overall.
“I really don’t care what other people think,” Cope said. “If I did, I probably wouldn’t even be in this position.”
How long has it been since Cope won the race?
Nascar Odds At Dover 2018
Earnhardt -- who limped to a fifth-place finish that year — had his son both start his NASCAR career and retire from the sport over that span. Bill Elliott was third in 1990 and his 25-year-old son, Chase, is the reigning NASCAR champion. A.J Foyt finished 36th. And Morgan Shepherd -- who raised similar concerns about his ability to compete as he raced into his 70s -- was a spry 48 in 1990 when he finished 10th.
Cope was 23 when he made his first Cup start in the 1982 Winston Western 500 at Riverside International Raceway, where he finished 36th with an oil leak. He was winless in 71 Cup starts when Cope stunned the sport by being in the right place at anything-goes Daytona when Earnhardt suddenly slowed.
Cope cruised past him to take the most improbable checkered flag.
For those keeping score at home, that’s one more Daytona 500 title than retired three-time series champion Tony Stewart. It’s one more than the combined total of active NASCAR champions Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keslowski and Kyle Busch.
Cope was invited on David Letterman’s late-night show and 10 races after Daytona showed he was no one-win wonder with a second checkered flag at Dover International Speedway.
Then, nothing.
Daytona and Dover are his only career victories and account for one-third of Cope’s career top-fives in 427 career Cup races.
Cope has spent most of the last 20 years piecing together occasional Cup races. He bounced around teams and cars and lower-level series, and the shine that should have come as a Daytona 500 champion instead led to little job security and a constant scramble for funding.
Bobby Allison was forced to shutter his race team after the 1996 season because of financial woes, putting Cope out of work and he drifted throughout the aughts without ever starting more than 18 races in a season.
“Maybe if I had been able to stay there with the funding, my career would have gone a different route,” Cope said. “From that point on, you’re in more of a mediocre-type of scenario from there.”
His last Cup Series race was a 33rd-place finish in 2018 at Darlington Raceway. Cope, who also works as manager of Cup team StarCom Racing, will drive the No. 15 Chevrolet for Rick Ware Racing.
Ware has received more buzz from selecting Cope than he would have with other available lesser-known drivers.
“We have to make sure we’re relevant with the media,” Ware said. “Every year we’re trying to grow our team and the quality of our team. It’s very competitive, so we have to take baby steps.”
Cope’s senior status, though, raised the age-old issue in NASCAR: Just how old is too old to compete?
Mark Thompson was 66 when he finished 22nd in the 2018 Daytona 500. Dave Marcis was 60 in the 2002 race. Shepherd is 79 and raced in 12 Xfinity Series races in 2019. He was blasted for slow performances that had him well off the pace in his two Cup starts in 2014.
“If we want to market ourselves as the best drivers in the world, we need to ensure the drivers who are out there and being approved, consistently go out there and perform,” NASCAR executive vice president Steve O’Donnell said. “If we feel like someone puts the sport at risk, we’re going to react and we have reacted.”
Busch, who griped last season about drivers who lack the experience to race at NASCAR’s top level, said eligibility standards should be set among the top 40 NASCAR racers each week.
“There’s a point to where you’ve got to have enough cars out there, but also, if you want to be the pinnacle of stock car racing in the world that you’d like to have opportune talent be in the right cars or in the right position, but that’s never going to happen either,” he said.
Cope agreed, saying NASCAR has too many “young kids that really have no regard for anything other than getting to the finish line.”
Older than his peers, Cope expected to be in the thick of contention with 10 laps left. The car Ware is providing was built by Richard Childress Racing and powered by an Earnhardt-Childress Racing engine.
“He has a legitimate shot to stay out of trouble and have himself a top 10,” Ware said.
True, the unpredictable nature of superspeedway racing can often lead to backmarkers crashing the top 10, but Cope hasn’t cracked that mark since he was fifth in 1997 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
But, hey, it’s the Daytona 500, and if anyone knows how to pull off a shocker, it’s Derrike Cope.
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
- August 20
- by Micah Roberts
- VegasInsider.com
NASCAR Cup Series
Dover Picks
The awesome news this weekend is that we have a double-header at Dover International Speedway with one race Saturday called the Drydene 311 and another on Sunday also called the Drydene 311. The not-so-awesome news is that this will be the last double-header of the season.
The concept of having two NASCAR Cup races on the same weekend wasn’t born out of the pandemic because it was originally scheduled for Pocono.
But for NASCAR to run 36 Cup races in 2020 and catch up with the original Playoff schedule, they had to do mash a few weekends together and I absolutely love it.
Dover Betting Resources
- Race: Drydene 311
- Date: Aug. 23, Aug. 24, 2020
- TV-Time: NBCSN, 4:00 p.m. ET
- Venue: Dover International Speedway
- Location: Dover, Delaware
I think NASCAR is listening too. Between the drivers and teams, I haven’t heard one bad thing about the doubleheader format except a few have complained about no practices. Expect a couple on the schedule next year and Pocono, Michigan, and Dover would be welcomed sites again.
The great thing about Dover is that it is unique to itself. There’s no other track like it. It’s a 1-mile concrete layout with 24 degrees of banking in the turns making it kind of like Bristol on steroids. It’s super-fast. Just take a look at the pole speed from Dover last May compared to New Hampshire’s flat 1-mile layout. Dover was 165 mph while New Hampshire is 133 mph. Same distance, but way different speeds.
“It’s called the Monster Mile for a reason,” said three-time Dover winner Kyle Busch. “It’s almost like going around a circle in a rollercoaster. The drop-off you have going into the corners, the sustained load that you have, as well as the G-force of turning around that turn and going back the other direction.”
NASCAR Cup Odds
Drydene 311 Race 1 Odds
Saturday, August 22, 2020
- Kevin Harvick +375
- Martin Truex Jr. +375
- Chase Elliott +550
- Denny Hamlin +600
- Kyle Busch +1200
- Brad Keselowski +1200
- Joey Logano +1500
- Ryan Blaney +1600
- Jimmie Johnson +2000
- Aric Almirola +2500
- (Odds Subject to Change)
Handicapping Dover
Busch is one of six different drivers to have won the last six Dover races but after 23 races this season he’s still searching for his first win. The drought has pushed his odds up to 12/1 to win this week which I’m debating on how much to include him in my betting portfolio this week.
In addition to three Dover wins, he’s got 12 top-fives and led 1,210 laps. I’m not into the due theory for any betting sport, but yes, Kyle Busch is due and he’s been strong with this race package.
Buy the Hometown Narrative?
I’ll come back to Busch later, but the driver to start with this week is Martin Truex Jr. who won his first career Cup race at Dover in 2007. Dover is only two hours away from where he grew up in Mayetta, NJ and he’s treated it lately like one of the best home-field advantages in sports.
He’s been ninth or better in 10 of the last 12 races there and 15th or better in all 12. Last season he won the spring race and was runner-up in the fall. Starting with his 2016 win, he’s been fourth or better in six of his last seven Dover starts.
And then we have to talk about the run his team is on with four straight third-place finishes, two of them using this week’s race package featuring engines with 750 horsepower, the package he grabbed his only win of the year with at Martinsville. This is his race to lose.
Chasing Chase
Chase Elliott is the next driver to focus on because of his performance at both Dover and the 750 hp package this season. He’s got another reason why the doubleheaders are cool.
“To me, doubleheaders mean that there are a lot of points on the line in a short matter of time,” Elliott said. “Thankfully, for our good run at the Daytona Road Course and this new qualifying format, we will get to start up front on Saturday at Dover. Having that first pit box is also a huge thing for us this weekend.”
Elliott won the 2018 fall race at Dover and six of his eight career starts there have been top-fives. It sounds like he has this place figured out and should be paid attention to in any betting strategy so I will position him in dollar amounts to ensure a 3-to-1 return-on-investment after all my other bets lose.
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Avoid the Chalk
Oddsmakers have posted Kevin Harvick as the +275 favorite as though he’s going to duplicate the Michigan sweep. He’s a two-time Dover winner and likes this track.
“Dover is the racetrack where you feel the sensation of speed more than anything,” Harvick said. “It’s a place where you drop off into the corner and slam into a lot of banking and then, as you come out of the corner, it’s kind of like jumping out of a hole and up onto the straightaway. It’s a really fun place to race. You feel that sensation of speed and you can be really aggressive.”
Call me crazy, but I’ve left Harvick out of all my betting equations this week. I’m not betting against him in match-ups out of respect to how well his team has put everything together with a series-leading six wins. But none of those wins came with the 750 hp package. They were all with the 550 hp package - Michigan twice, Pocono, Indy, Atlanta, and Darlington.
Nascar Odds Dover 2020
This week’s cars used on the tracks 1-mile or shorter and road courses have a small crew of teams that have excelled like the Team Penske cars and Hendrick Motorsports with Elliott and Jimmie Johnson. Six races, four different winners with Brad Keselowski and Elliott having two wins, and Joey Logano and Truex having the others.
No Denny Hamlin, either, although he has been runner-up in his last two starts using it. William Hill books have overpriced Hamlin this week at 9/2 odds so I’m shopping for other drivers I think can win. Hamlin has never won at Dover. Keselowski is a good play just because of the car as is Blaney at 15/1 odds, but I’m reaching out to some longer shots.
Looking for Dover Longshots
I wasn’t smart enough to bag a win with Cole Custer at 300/1 odds at Kentucky or Austin Dillon at 100/1 odds at Texas, but I’ve been chasing my white whale the last few weeks and I’m going again this week. No, it’s not Aric Almirola and I’ll let you know when the time to bet hmi again is like when they race the 550 hp package again.
But Clint Bowyer at 50/1 odds said hello. He doesn’t have a Dover win, but he’s been wheeling this particular race package better than Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Harvick. He was sixth last week on the road course, fifth at Phoenix, and runner-up at Bristol, the track that might resemble Dover the most. I’m on him again this week.
He’s such a fun guy to root for and I’ve been waiting to have a post-race beer with him for a while. Maybe it’s Saturday or Sunday. I’ll have action on him both days.
The other guy is Jimmie Johnson, who like Bowyer, has been at his best with this week’s race package. He finished fourth with it last week in a sweet new paint scheme he’ll be using this week as well. Did I mention he owns the Dover track record with 11 wins and 3,110 laps led?
“We are very excited for this weekend at Dover,” Johnson said. “It’s hands down my favorite track, and from the pictures I have seen, there is a lot of Ally signage all over the place. It’s a homecoming of sorts. Performance-wise, last weekend at the Daytona Road Course we had a solid day. We needed that. Because of our fourth-place finish, we will be starting sixth Saturday at Dover, which is really an advantage to where we have been starting lately. With the random draw and the way track position has been working out, I feel like we have had things stacked against us for a while. This will be a good advantage for us, and we just have to go out there and get it done.”
Come on Jimmie. It’s been 118 races since the last win, which not so ironically came at Dover. Last season at Dover, last weekend at Dover. I love the storybook stuff in NASCAR and a Jimmie win at Dover is like peanut butter and jelly that pays out at 25-to-1 odds. It’s not all about his history, it’s about this particular race package which has been his best that includes third at Martinsville and leading 70 laps at Martinsville before finishing 10th.
As for Kyle Busch, I'll be looking to make a 15 percent bankroll profit if he wins. He's 12/1, I can't pass.
Dover Double-Header
Top-5 Finish Prediction
Saturday - August 22, 2020
- 1) #19 Martin Truex Jr. (11/2)
- 2) #14 Clint Bowyer (50/1)
- 3) #48 Jimmie Johnson (25/1)
- 4) #9 Chase Elliott (13/2)
- 5) #2 Brad Keselowski (12/1)
Sunday - August 23, 2020
- 1) #9 Chase Elliott (7/1)
- 2) #2 Brad Keselowski (12/1)
- 3) #19 Martin Truex Jr. (5/1)
- 4) #11 Denny Hamlin (6/1)
- 5) #4 Kevin Harvick (9/2)