The NASCAR All-Star Race moves to Dover Motor Speedway this weekend for the first time in the 42-year history of the event, and the new format is generating as much heat as the racing itself. The Monster Mile becomes the sixth different venue to host the exhibition, North Wilkesboro loses its three-year run, and the race itself balloons from 125 miles to 350 laps for the $1 million prize.
The headline change is the elimination of the All-Star Open. Every driver now jumps straight into a main event split into three segments — 75 laps, 75 laps and a 200-lap finale — with only 26 cars surviving to the closing stint. Race winners from 2025 and 2026 are locked in, along with full-time former All-Star Race winners and former Cup champions, the fan vote and the best combined finishers from the opening two segments. The field is then inverted between segment one and segment two, dropping the fastest cars to the back and bumping the slowest to the front.
The latest twist, revealed on NASCAR's Hauler Talk podcast, has done more than anything to put the format under the microscope. Managing director for racing communications Mike Ford laid out a rule that had slipped past most observers, telling the show, "Unlike a typical race where there are stages, if a car goes down a lap in one of the segments, they do not remain a lap down in the subsequent stages."
In other words, a lap lost in segment one is wiped clean for segment two, and again for the 200-lap finale. Ford also confirmed that drivers a lap down before a caution can still take the beneficiary, meaning by the time the inverted field rolls to the start of segment three, every car — including the six who transferred through — will be on the lead lap.
The rule has fans and parts of the garage asking why the segments are being stitched together at all. If the field resets between each one, the argument goes, NASCAR has effectively built three short exhibition races and asked everyone to call them one. Critics say it reads as artificial drama in a sport that already spent the regular season experimenting with stage racing. There is also a real concern that teams could sandbag in segment one to grab a better grid spot through the inversion, particularly at a one-mile concrete bowl that does not throw cautions or wholesale shake-ups the way the Bristols or Martinsvilles of the schedule do.
Dover Motor Speedway president Mike Tatoian defended the package, saying the track "listened to our fans and worked closely with NASCAR to create a format that blends the tradition of a typical race weekend at the Monster Mile with the excitement and unpredictability that make the All-Star Race so special." The track has hosted an annual points race every year since 1969 and lost that points date to North Wilkesboro a year ago, so the All-Star booking is a partial replacement. Insider Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic reports there is genuine worry in the garage about Dover's long-term place on the schedule beyond this one-off.
Nineteen drivers are already locked in, headed by William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Austin Cindric, Ryan Blaney and Shane van Gisbergen. The fan vote ballot through May 11 reads Alex Bowman, Chris Buescher, Noah Gragson, Ryan Preece and Connor Zilisch, with voting closing on Sunday morning. Christopher Bell is the defending champion after taking last year's race at North Wilkesboro, and Kyle Larson leads active drivers with three All-Star wins.
The weekend also brings an unusual qualifying format — a flying lap into a four-tire pit stop and a sprint back to the start-finish line, with the fastest combined time taking pole. It is the last race on Fox before Prime Video picks up the summer stretch, and the green flag drops at 1pm Eastern on Sunday. NASCAR clearly wants to engineer a show. Whether resetting lap-down cars three times in a 350-lap race delivers that show, or just dresses up a long Sunday at the Monster Mile as something it is not, is the question hanging over the weekend.
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