Let me set the scene for you, folks. For 41 years, the NASCAR All-Star Race was a Charlotte thing — the crown jewel of the sport's most famous night, right there at the track you could see from the top of a tall enough building. Charlotte ran it from 1985 through 2019. Then Texas got a turn. Bristol got a turn. North Wilkesboro got a turn. Each move felt like a statement. And now, for the first time in this event's entire history, the All-Star Race is going Northeast.
Dover Motor Speedway. The Monster Mile. Sunday, May 17. One p.m. ET on FS1 and HBO Max.
This is BIG.
Dover has been running NASCAR races since 1969 — this concrete-walled, high-banked, relentless one-mile oval that chews up cars and spits out tire compounds before the halfway mark. Twenty-four degrees of banking in the corners. Nine degrees on the straights. Frontstretch and backstretch, each 1,076 feet long. Denny Hamlin set the qualifying record here back in October 2019: 166.984 mph, 21.559 seconds. Kyle Larson, No. 5, Hendrick Motorsports, holds the race record: 135.734 mph, set the very next day. This is not a gentle racetrack. There is nothing forgiving about it. And that is exactly the point.
Dover becomes the sixth different venue in All-Star Race history to host the event. The first in the Northeast, period. Forty-one years. Nobody had ever brought this race to a Northeastern market before Sunday.
That changes this weekend.
The Format, Explained
No All-Star Open this year. Gone. The format has been redesigned around one idea: every driver on the track from the jump, maximum intensity from the first green flag. For the complete format breakdown, read GNT's format explainer here.
Three segments. Segment 1 and Segment 2 run 75 laps each. The full field runs both. After Segment 1, the top 26 finishers are inverted for Segment 2's start lineup. Then comes Segment 3 — 200 laps, 26 drivers, winner takes everything. A competition break falls at or around Lap 225 of the finale.
The really interesting wrinkle is Saturday. Qualifying on May 16 has been rebuilt from the ground up. Drivers take the green flag, run one full lap at speed, and on the second lap they head straight to pit road — four tires, no fuel, at one of two NASCAR-designated stalls. Fastest total elapsed time from green to checkered earns the pole. The pit crew with the fastest stop during the qualifying attempt (no penalties assessed) wins the Pit Crew Challenge. Pit selection order for the race flows from those Challenge results. It is qualifying and a pit crew competition wrapped into one Saturday afternoon. (I genuinely cannot tell you how much I love this format.)
The 26 drivers advancing to the final segment come from three pools: race winners from 2025 or 2026, former All-Star Race winners competing full-time, and former Cup Series champions competing full-time. The 26th and final position goes to the NASCAR All-Star Fan Vote winner.
The Locked-In Field
Seventeen drivers are already in: William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney, Josh Berry, Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe, Ross Chastain, Shane Van Gisbergen, Bubba Wallace, and Kyle Busch.
Shane Van Gisbergen's name on that list deserves its own sentence. The three-time Supercars champion has gone from Cup rookie to All-Star qualifier in rapid time — and anyone who watched what he did at Watkins Glen (his comeback win is worth your five minutes) knows this driver can find grip on a surface that rewards commitment. Dover's concrete is a different animal than the Glen's road course, but the underlying lesson was the same: SVG doesn't back down from a track that demands everything.
Look at that locked-in list and appreciate what Sunday is: three recent All-Star Race winners (Larson three times, Logano in 2024, Bell in 2025), former champions throughout the field, and a 200-lap finale built around the premise that the Monster Mile punishes hesitation.
The History You're Walking Into
Let me give you the numbers, because they matter.
Forty-one All-Star Races have been held since 1985. Jimmie Johnson leads all-time with four wins — 2003, 2006, 2012, 2013. Kyle Larson leads all active drivers with three (2019, 2021, 2023). Joey Logano leads all-time laps led with 369 in 15 starts. Mark Martin holds the all-time starts record at 24. Hendrick Motorsports leads all organizations with 11 wins. Chevrolet leads all manufacturers with 21.
When you trace the history of this race, you're following the central thread of Cup Series excellence across four decades. And now Dover — this northeastern proving ground that NASCAR has raced since 1969 — gets to write its own chapter in it. The first All-Star Race winner at Dover goes into the record books alongside Jimmie Johnson, alongside Darrell Waltrip, alongside Dale Earnhardt. That's not nothing, folks.
What Goodyear Is Bringing
NASCAR Cup Series teams will run Goodyear Racing Eagle tire code D-5276 on the left side and D-5260 on the right — the same left-side compound that debuted at Bristol in April, paired with a right-side tire last raced at Dover in July 2025.
"Teams will be able to combine their data from Bristol in April with their running from Dover last season to optimize their setups ahead of this weekend," said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. "We are bringing a tire setup specifically designed to withstand the track's high speeds and heavy loads, while also helping lay rubber on its concrete surface, particularly given how smooth it is."
Ten sets per Cup team: six for the race, two for qualifying and the Pit Crew Challenge, two for practice. The Challenge format adds a layer Goodyear rarely sees — tire execution and crew speed are both on the clock in the same session Saturday.
Friday and Saturday First
Before Sunday gets here, there's a full weekend to burn through.
Friday, May 15 — 5:00 p.m. ET on FS1: the ECOSAVE 200, NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, 200 laps at Dover. Kaden Honeycutt has been running hot — his sweep at Watkins Glen tells you what kind of form he's in — and Dover will be the next test. Full Trucks preview here.
Saturday, May 16 — 4:00 p.m. ET on The CW: the BetRivers 200, NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, 200 laps at Dover. Justin Allgaier leads the O'Reilly Series points heading into this weekend. Full O'Reilly Series preview here.
Saturday also brings the All-Star qualifying session and Pit Crew Challenge on FS1.
The Bottom Line
Dover has waited 41 years for this moment. The Monster Mile didn't get here by being soft about it — this track earned its reputation as one of the most demanding surfaces in the sport, and now it gets to host the race that matters most outside the points race.
Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, 26 of the best drivers in the world find out what they've got on concrete that has no patience for getting it wrong. Most of them haven't been here for a real race in nearly a year. The track will tell them immediately what they missed.
I'll be watching every lap. You should be, too.
The NASCAR All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway runs Sunday, May 17 at 1:00 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN Radio, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The O'Reilly Series BetRivers 200 runs Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET on The CW. The Craftsman Truck Series ECOSAVE 200 runs Friday at 5:00 p.m. ET on FS1.