DOVER, Del. — The “Promoter’s Caution” has been scrapped for this season’s NASCAR All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway, which will be a three-segment, 350-lap competition on the one-mile concrete oval.
The May 17 event marks the first time in the 42-year history of the NASCAR All-Star Race that it will be held in the Northeast. NASCAR moved the event to the Delaware track after it was held the past three seasons at North Carolina’s North Wilkesboro Speedway, which will instead have a points race this year, while Dover lost its traditional Cup Series race for at least one season.
That much was known last fall, when NASCAR revealed its 2026 schedule, but on Wednesday, the stock-car sanctioning body shared the details about the format for this year’s All-Star Race.
All eligible drivers will race in the first two segments, and the top 26 finishers from the first segment will have their starting order inverted for the second, while the remaining drivers will line up by finish.
The lowest combined finishing positions from both segments set the starting lineup for the 200-lap final race. That will feature 26 cars, with race winners and previous champions automatically locked in. The remaining spots will be filled by results from the first two segments until the field reaches 25 drivers. The final position will be awarded through the fan vote.
During the final segment, a competition break will take place at or around the 225th lap.
There is again a $1 million prize for the race winner in the exhibition race, but no season points are at stake.
Christopher Bell passed Joey Logano with nine laps remaining and cruised to victory last season at North Wilkesboro in an action-packed All-Star Race that featured the “Promoter’s Caution” that allowed the track president to decide when to throw the yellow flag at a random point in the race to bunch the field. The late flag hurt Logano’s bid for the win and the $1 million prize, but no one will face that risk this time.
Also, Dover will also hold a Truck Series race on Friday and a race from the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series on Saturday. It will mark the first time in NASCAR history that all three national series compete the weekend of the All-Star Race.