Playoff drivers fill top 12 starting spots at Dover

Martin Truex Jr. (78), Kevin Harvick (4) and Kyle Busch (18) battle for position during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway in August.
Martin Truex Jr. (78), Kevin Harvick (4) and Kyle Busch (18) battle for position during the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway in August.

DOVER, Del. - Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick have been the drivers to beat all season in NASCAR's Cup Series.

They'll be the ones to catch again Sunday at Dover International Speedway.

Busch and Harvick, each with seven wins on the top-tier circuit in 2018, will start on the front row at the one-mile concrete oval to kick off the second round of the playoffs.

Rain washed out qualifying Friday, setting the starting lineup for the Gander Outdoors 400 on points and giving the top dozen spots to the 12 drivers who remain in the playoff field. Four drivers were cut from the original field after last Sunday's race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Sports betting is legal in Delaware, and fans can now place bets on the race winner and other prop bets at Dover International Speedway. Busch and Harvick both have 3-1 odds to win Sunday's race.

Fans can bet on the race winner, the first two stage winners, plus a slew of prop bets that range from number of drivers to lead a lap to the average race speed.

"It just adds an element of interest to keep people tuned in to what's going on," Dover Motorsports CEO Denis McGlynn said.

Delaware launched full-scale sports betting in June, barely three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states to implement wagering schemes. Because of a failed sports lottery experiment in 1976, Delaware was partially exempt from the 1992 federal ban on sports gambling that was recently struck down by the Supreme Court. That exemption led to broader sports betting legislation passed in 2009, and Delaware enacted an NFL parlay wagering system, which combined to give the state a head start in offering full-scale sports gambling.

At Dover Downs and Dover International Speedway, single-game and championship wagering on professional baseball, football, hockey, basketball, soccer, golf and auto racing are now offered, with betting lines supplied by William Hill.

"They can do it all here," McGlynn said.

As for the on-track action, Busch said starting in pole position is about six to eight spots higher than he thought he might have qualified in the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"It's certainly better for us not to go out there and have to bust out a really fast lap," he said.

Dover starts the next three-race playoff round, which includes visits to Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas Speedway, with four more drivers cut after that.

Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski and Clint Bowyer round out the starting top five. Joey Logano, Kurt Busch, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Aric Almirola and Alex Bowman will start sixth to 12th.

Jimmie Johnson can extend his own track record with a 12th win at Dover, but he'll remain stuck on seven series championships.

Johnson, tied with Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty for most season titles in Cup Series history, blew a chance to snap a long losing streak last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He has gone 52 races since his most recent win, a victory in June 2017 at Dover.

Johnson tried to dive inside and pass race leader Truex with two turns remaining on the roval course at CMS. Instead, he ended up spinning and collected Truex, who spun off the course as Johnson's car came to a stop. Blaney scooted past both Johnson and Truex for the surprise victory.

"It was nice to be up there mixing it up with the guys," Johnson said. "I haven't been in that position in a while."

Johnson, 42, has slogged through the worst season of his 17-year NASCAR career. The Hendrick Motorsports driver swept Dover's Cup Series races in 2002 and 2009 and also won there in 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Johnson would have qualified for this round of the playoffs had he just settled for second place. Instead, he wound up eighth and out of the playoffs. Truex rear-ended Johnson on the cool-down lap and criticized him after the race, saying that Johnson missing the playoffs after such a miscalculation seemed appropriate.

Still, Johnson had few regrets about the decision.

"I still have to make that move. I still have to try for it," Johnson said. "I would have made a small brake bias adjustment, and I think I would have modulated the brakes a little bit different into the corner."

Drivers also shared their thoughts Friday on NASCAR's announcement this week of its 2019 rules package, which includes the phasing out of restrictor plates.

NASCAR wants to lower the horsepower in Cup Series cars at 21 races, all on ovals longer than 1.2 miles, from 750 horsepower to 550. The 14 races on tracks shorter than 1.2 miles in length will use the same size of spacers as this season.

NASCAR believes the adjustments will create more passing and more drafting and afford a better throttle response for the drivers. NASCAR said it didn't make the moves to promote pack racing, but the package will slow down cars on the series' biggest tracks.

"You don't bash anything. I think it's going to be fine," Blaney said. "We talked about it a lot in the driver council, and we all came to a conclusion, and that's what they went with and I'm behind it 100 percent."

Logano, the 2015 winner of the Daytona 500, a race in which restrictor plates have been used, said slower could be better.

"At a lot of race tracks I think it will be better, and at some race tracks it may be similar to where we're at, so we'll just have to wait and see," he said.

Larson, who topped the speed chart in Friday's lone practice, saw two sides.

"I want to go as fast as I can," he said, "but we've got to work on putting on a good show for the fans."

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