Chase Elliott took note that Dover’s grandstands passed the eye test and looked fuller on Sunday before rain washed out the conclusion of the race.
The advertising tarps that once covered empty sections at Dover Motor Speedway went the way of the rain on Monday: totally gone.
Dover‘s attendance rebound following two years of pandemic restrictions — and shrinking turnout for more than a decade even before 2020 — was the boost the track needed in its first race under new management. Long independently owned, Speedway Motorsports bought Dover Motorsports late last year and added the Monster Mile to its growing collection of tracks. And who doesn‘t want to impress the new boss, especially when the boss — in this case, Speedway Motorsports President Marcus Smith — worked the Dover gates and greeted fans Monday with the track short-staffed.
Dover had already moved its fall race to a new location. Perhaps a poor showing this weekend would have made SMI strongly consider bumping Dover off the slate completely to a sexier new site. The old mile concrete track still has legs: SMI COO Mike Burch said the plan was to keep Dover on the NASCAR schedule just as its been since 1969.
“Given where we are, there just has never been any kind of discussion about us losing a race,” Dover President Mike Tatoian said. “I have no reason to believe we will not be racing here for a long period of time.”
— Associated Press —
