Qualla: Dover Motor Speedway

Dover Motor Speedway: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Quintin Soloviev, CC BY 4.0. The Dover Motor Speedway is a one-mile concrete oval banked at 24 degrees in the turns. Drivers call it the Monster Mile. The concrete - asphalt was replaced with reinforced concrete in 1995, a $1.8 million repaving job - is unique among the major NASCAR ovals in the United States. Concrete is harder than asphalt, less forgiving to slide on, faster on the bottom groove, and demands a different driving line through every corner. A NASCAR Cup car hits about 175 miles per hour on the longer straightaway. The horse track sits inside the auto oval - a one-mile harness racing track operated separately by Bally's Dover. On race weekends, a fan watching the Cup Series sees a concrete oval that contains a dirt oval. Both have hosted official races. The Monster Mile is the only North American motorsport facility that is also a horse track.

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Image: Quintin Soloviev | CC BY 4.0

Dover Motor Speedway: David Buckson and the Lien Years

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Delaware State Government, Public domain. Dover Downs - the original name - was built by David P. Buckson, then-Attorney General of Delaware, who pushed Senate Bill 201 through the Delaware General Assembly in 1967. The bill rewrote state racing law specifically to let Buckson build the track. Governor Charles L. Terry J...

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Image: Delaware State Government | Public domain

Dover Motor Speedway: The Slot Machines and the Recovery

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the late 1980s, the horse racing business was dying nationally. Brandywine Raceway, north of Wilmington, closed in 1990. Dover Downs' horse purses were shrinking. In 1989, Denis McGlynn - who had succeeded Buckson as president of Dover Downs in 1979 - began publicly advocating...

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dover Motor Speedway: Miles the Monster

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. The track's official mascot, since 2000, is Miles the Monster - a 46-foot fiberglass figure that stands at the entrance to the speedway. Miles looks like a cross between the Hulk and the Marvel Comics character The Thing, made of jagged concrete. The mascot was inspired by a them...

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dover Motor Speedway: The Boom and the Decline

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, the track expanded continuously. The seating capacity grew from about 30,000 in 1985 to 140,000 by 2005 - making Dover, briefly, one of the largest sporting venues in the country. The 1996 master plan approved by the City of Dover would...

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Image: User:Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Dover Motor Speedway: Firefly, SMI, and the Modern Mile

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dough4872, CC BY-SA 3.0. From 2012 through 2018, the Firefly Music Festival ran in the Woodlands adjacent to the speedway. Headliners included Paul McCartney, Eminem, Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire, and Bob Dylan; attendance reached 90,000 across four days. The festival paused after 2018, returned in 2021 and...

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Image: Dough4872 | CC BY-SA 3.0