DESIGN AND GRAPHICS BY DAN GARROW/THE NEWS JOURNAL

DOVER’S

MILE

By Brad MyersThe News Journal

It’s easy to remember a great roller coaster. As soon as it stops,you want to ride it again.

Dover International Speedway has one of the greatest thrill ridesin the world, but it’s not open to the public. Only the 43 drivers whomake the field for the twice-a-year NASCAR Sprint Cup races get tofully experience the Monster Mile.

And they get to ride it 400 times in about three hours.“A lot of the drivers compare it to a roller coaster,” said Tony Gib-

son, crew chief for Danica Patrick, the only female driver on the cir-cuit. “You fall into the corners, and you jump out of the corners.”

The Monster Mile will be at full tilt Sept. 26-28 as NASCAR’s bestreturn for the AAA 400, the third race in the 10-event Chase for theSprint Cup that determines stock-car racing’s season-long champion.Gibson has been coming to Dover since the 1980s, preparing cars forsome of the biggest names in the sport – Alan Kulwicki, Bill Elliott,Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin. He said the key tovictory is keeping your car low in the one-mile oval’s sweeping cor-ners, which are banked at 24 degrees, among the steepest inNASCAR.

“You want to run around the bottom, because it’s the shortest wayaround,” Gibson said. “The driver who can get hooked up around thebottom and carry that corner speed, that’s what you’re looking for.Usually one or two guys will be on the bottom there and hook it up,and those are the guys who are usually fighting for the win.”

But that is easier said than done, because the cars plunge intothose turns at 170 mph. As the 400-lap race goes on, many of the cars

begin to drift upward in the corners, losing valuable time. The ex-treme gravitational forces the corners place on the cars takes a

toll. Tires are the first thing to wear, so they are changed duringalmost every pit stop. But other parts can fail, too.

It has been that way since July 6, 1969, when Richard Pettywon the Mason-Dixon 300, the first NASCAR race at what wasthen known as Dover Downs. Denis McGlynn, CEO of DoverMotorsports Inc., coined the Monster Mile nickname in themid-1970s.

“The track was becoming known as a monster, one thatwas very tough on drivers and tough on equipment,” saidGary Camp, the speedway’s director of communications.“Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for the driver to have a re-lief driver because they couldn’t finish the whole race. Orthey would get out of the car at the end of 500 miles and col-

lapse and need oxygen.”The asphalt surface was replaced with concrete in 1995, and

Sprint Cup races were shortened to 400 miles in 1997. ButDover remains one of the most difficult of NASCAR’s 23 tracks.

Gibson said the drivers feel it in their neck, shoulders and ribs.And that signature plunge into and spring out of each corner

stresses the car at different points, making handling difficult.“There is so much vertical and lateral load, it’s incredible,” Gib-

son said. “When you’re going down the straightaway and you go intothe corner it drops off, so the car is unloading and then it loads backup.

“That’s the big issue at Dover. It’s not a perfectly loaded race-track all the way around. It unloads and loads the car at differentpoints, and that makes it a challenge.”

It’s a roller coaster.Contact Brad Myers at bmyers@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter@BradMyersTNJ

R A C E W E E K E N D

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THE ‘ROLLER COASTER’COURSE IS THE FASTEST ONE-MILE OVAL RACE TRACKIN THE WORLD

THE NEWS JOURNAL/GARYEMEIGH

THE TRACK• Opened with the inaugural running of the Mason-Dixon 300on July 6, 1969.• The course is the fastest one-mile oval race track in the world• A concrete track (the track wasasphalt from 1969 through1994) makes Dover one of onlytwo completely concrete trackson the NASCAR Sprint CupSeries.• Owner and operator: Dover Motorsports, Inc.• Architect: Melvin Joseph

BANKING: 9° straightaways

BANKING: 24° turns

BANKING: 24° turns

BLEACHERS

STRAIGHTAWAYS: 1,067 feet

CAPACITY: 113,000 race fans

SURFACE: concrete

PIT ROW: 1,580 feet long, 47 feet wide

PIT POSITIONS: 43 with water and electric

SAFETY APRON & PIT ROADSURFACE: Asphalt

SIZE

Dover InternationalSpeedway

Delaware Stadiumin Newark ‘MONSTER’

DESIGN AND GRAPHICS BY DAN GARROW

MONSTERBRIDGE

Miles holds afull-size, retiredstock car in his

right hand.The red eyes

of theMonster lightup at night.

Plaques honorthe drivers

with the mostsuccess at

Dover.

ONLINE QUIZ AND INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC Test how much you’ve learned about THE MONSTER MILE at delawareonline.com/didyouknow NEXT WEEK: UD’S LEGENDARY CHEMICAL ENGINEERING PROGRAM

MILES THE MONSTER The Monster Monument, one ofthe largest fiberglass structures inthe country, stands at 46-feet talland depicts Dover’s signature icon, Miles the Monster.

MONSTER ANGLESThe turns at Dover International Speedway are banked at 24degrees, among the steepest in NASCAR. But unlike most othertracks, the straightaways are banked too, at 9 degrees. Tony Gibson, crewchief for Sprint Cup driver Danica Patrick, said that often leads to big pileups if thereis an accident. “Anything that happens, you go to the bottom,” Gibson said. “It’s what we call a self-cleaning racetrack,because things always clear to the bottom. You slide into that bottom lane, and that’s right in the middle of traffic. There’sno way to miss anybody.”

– Brad Myers

DoverInternationalSpeedway trackhistorian GeorgeKeller shows the24-degree trackbank, third steep-est in NASCAR.GARY EMEIGH/THE NEWS JOURNAL

BANKINGON IT

24°

9°

The bank angles are 24-degreeson the curves and 9-degrees

on the straighaways