By Jared Turner And then there were 12. With last Sunday’s elimination race at Dover International Speedway, Chris Buescher, Tony Stewart, Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray all fell out of contention for the 2016 Sprint Cup title. Moving on to the next round and still in the hunt for the sport’s biggest prize are Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Matt Kenseth, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon and Kevin Harvick. Of the dozen remaining championship hopefuls, only Dillon and Elliott – a Sprint Cup Series rookie – are winless entering Saturday night’s…

By Jared Turner Austin Dillon Has To Step It Up To Advance Of the 12 remaining drivers in contention for the 2016 Sprint Cup Series championship, there’s one clear underdog of the bunch – and, hands-down, it’s Austin Dillon. While each of the other 11 championship hopefuls has recorded no fewer than six top-five finishes this year, Dillon has just four top fives. Even more concerning for the oldest grandson of veteran team owner Richard Childress is that he hasn’t come home with a top-five finish since the August race at Bristol Motor Speedway. In the six races since Bristol, Dillon has…

By Keith Waltz In one of the greatest come-from-behind drives in the history of stock car racing, Richard Petty erased a six-lap deficit and beat Dick Brooks’ Ford to the finish line by 1.3 seconds to win the Delaware 500 on Sept. 14, 1975, at Dover International Speedway. Petty had lapped the field by lap 180 and was almost two laps ahead when a piece of debris from a blown engine in Elmo Langley’s Ford snapped the tie rod on his No. 43 STP Dodge. Petty was six laps behind the leader after his crew repaired the damage and he returned to…

By Jared Turner No one has been more potent at Dover through the years than six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, who owns a record 10 wins here and prevailed most recently in May 2015. Matt Kenseth won at Dover in May and returns to the Monster Mile this weekend on the heels of a second-place finish last weekend at New Hampshire. He’ll be tough; you can count on it. Fresh off a huge victory at New Hampshire, Kevin Harvick returns to Dover where he’s the defending winner of the fall race in which he led a whopping 355 of 400 laps.…

By Jared Turner It’s elimination time. With two races down and one to go in the opening round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the field of title contenders will shrink from 16 to 12 by the conclusion of Sunday’s Citizen Soldier 400 at Dover International Speedway. Two drivers – Martin Truex Jr. (Chicagoland) and Kevin Harvick (New Hampshire) – have already punched their proverbial tickets to the Round of 12 by going to Victory Lane the past two weekends, respectively. Two other drivers – Brad Keselowski and reigning Sprint Cup champion Kyle Busch – are meanwhile all but assured…

By Jared Turner NASCAR Should Raise Chase Eligibility Requirements Should NASCAR really include EVERY regular-season winner in the Chase, as long as every winner is also in the top 30 in points at regular season’s end? This year, Sprint Cup rookie Chris Buescher qualified for NASCAR’s playoff on what amounted to little more than a fluke – he won the August Pocono race after his crew chief gambled and left him on track while others came to pit road. With the race more than halfway complete, persistent fog forced NASCAR to call the race official with Buescher scored in the first position.…