- Denny Hamlin bags his second All-Star race win.
- Dover turned out to be a wreck-fest.
- Ryan Preece survived his No. 60 car, which exploded in flames.
No one expected the debut of the NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway to spiral into the kind of chaos that turned out on Sunday, but the “Monster Mile” once again proved why drivers treat the place like a minefield wrapped in concrete.
Dover chewed through tyres, crumpled sheet metal, sent crews scrambling behind the wall, and turned the fight for the $1m payday into a survival battle. Even for Denny Hamlin, the path to victory looked less like a Sunday cruise and more like walking a tightrope with the ground slipping away underneath.
Hamlin rebounded from a spin during qualifying to win the pole position, and then spent Sunday dodging wrecks, restarts, cautions, and collapsing strategies before outlasting his own teammate, Chase Briscoe, to capture his second NASCAR All-Star Race victory.
Cars piled up from the moment the green flag dropped
Practice earlier in the weekend suggested Kyle Larson might become the driver everyone would have to chase once the main event began. But qualifying shifted the balance toward the Toyota camp. Denny Hamlin secured the pole, though the advantage disappeared almost instantly when Brad Keselowski stormed past him entering Turn 2 on the opening lap. Before the field could even settle into rhythm, disaster struck on Lap 2.
A massive crash detonated in the opening stage, and it became the first of two separate nine-car pileups. The accidents either eliminated or crippled names usually expected to contend for the win, including former All-Star winners Chase Elliott, Larson, and Ryan Blaney.
Ryan Preece’s car catches fire
The trouble began when Ryan Preece found himself trapped on the outside of a three-wide battle involving Todd Gilliland and Larson on Lap 2. Preece and Gilliland made contact, and the field stacked up in seconds. Preece slammed backward into the Turn 1 wall at high speed, and with the fuel load still full, the No. 60 exploded in flames before he managed to safely climb out of the wreckage.
The chain reaction swallowed Gilliland, Larson, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Daniel Suárez, Cole Custer, John Hunter Nemechek, and Michael McDowell. Since Larson and Blaney were already locked into the final segment, both teams refused to throw in the towel as their crews dragged the damaged cars behind the wall and went to work in the garage, hoping to stitch the machines back together for the 200-lap finale.
Hamlin controlled most of the opening segment after reclaiming the lead from Keselowski, but Dover refused to let the race breathe.
Some more trouble during the race
Carson Hocevar slapped the wall with a flat tyre, bringing out another caution with only a handful of laps remaining in the segment. William Byron led a group onto pit road for fresh tyres while others gambled on track position and stayed out.
The restart led to another surge of trouble. Bubba Wallace muscled past Hamlin for the lead, but before the field could complete the lap, another multi-car wreck exploded across the frontstretch. Riley Herbst and Alex Bowman tangled, triggering another 9-car wreck. Elliott, Kyle Busch, Christopher Bell, Nemechek, and Chris Buescher were among the drivers forced behind the wall. Busch failed to return despite being locked in, while Elliott’s crew also could not piece the car back together in time.
As a result, Wallace won the opening segment ahead of Hamlin and Ross Chastain, but the inversion for the next segment flipped the running order upside down.
Nemechek was supposed to start the second segment from the lead, though the wreck at the end of Segment 1 erased that plan. Then, Herbst was supposed to line up second, Bell third, and Buescher fourth, but all four cars sat wounded in the garage.
Hence, instead, AJ Allmendinger inherited the lead with Shane van Gisbergen alongside him, and the duo went toe-to-toe immediately before another caution slowed the race.
SVG spin…
Chastain and Keselowski collided exiting Turn 2, sending both spinning. Wallace also got trapped in the mess, and all three drivers headed to the garage area. Chastain’s race ended there while Keselowski and Wallace later returned.
When the green flag waved again, Allmendinger and SVG resumed their fight at the front until SVG spun while racing side-by-side with Allmendinger. Somehow, the rest of the field threaded the needle and avoided the sideways No. 97.
Tyler Reddick then seized control and led until another caution flew after Ty Gibbs spun. Herbst barely escaped contact while Gibbs limped around with flat tyres, trying to regain momentum.
Bell returned to competition after spending an extended stretch in the garage, while teams split into every tyre strategy imaginable. Some bolted on four fresh tyres, others gambled with two, and some risked with scrubbed sets.
Allmendinger held the lead briefly before Briscoe swept past him. Reddick then moved around both drivers and carried the momentum to the segment victory ahead of Briscoe, Hamlin, Hocevar, and Connor Zilisch. Both segment wins therefore landed in the hands of 23XI Racing drivers.
The drivers advancing from the Open into the final segment were Zilisch, Erik Jones, Bowman, McDowell, Ty Dillon, Noah Gragson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Allmendinger.
Meanwhile, Smith, Ware, Herbst, Nemechek, Buescher, Gilliland, Preece, and Custer failed to transfer into the final stage. Elliott and Chastain became the only locked-in drivers unable to continue because of damage.
Denny Hamlin survived the chaos to win the race
Briscoe surged ahead of Hamlin on the restart entering the final 200-lap segment, though Reddick came alive during the long run and charged past both drivers.
The fight at the front tightened as laps disappeared. But then, Briscoe began slipping backward while Denny Hamlin closed in on Reddick. Busch and Bell both made unscheduled pit stops, and Busch compounded his problems with a speeding penalty.
Meanwhile, Reddick then lost momentum and dropped behind both Hamlin and Zilisch just before the competition caution flew with 125 laps remaining. For a brief moment, it looked as though Zilisch might restart beside Hamlin on the front row after finally driving into contention near the front. Instead, NASCAR penalized him for equipment interference, knocking him backward and handing another opening to the veterans.
Hamlin regained control as green-flag pit stops began with 65 laps remaining. But then again, Joey Logano blew a tire and crashed, ending a race where the Penske driver had largely stayed under the radar. The caution trapped several drivers who had just completed pit stops, including Byron, Hocevar, and Blaney.
Hamlin, the last man standing
The race resumed with 52 laps left, and Briscoe again snatched the lead on the restart. Hamlin, however, remained glued to his bumper.
Reddick’s race then ended when the No. 45 developed a problem and had to pit under green. The 23XI crew immediately lifted the hood, and his bid for the All-Star prize vanished in a cloud of frustration.
Denny Hamlin finally completed the pass on Briscoe with 29 laps remaining and never looked back, crossing the finish line 0.887 seconds ahead after surviving a demolition derby race. Dover collected cars all afternoon, but somehow Hamlin happened to be the last man still standing when it all ended.
