(Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

Dover stands alone. There are no real comparatives for this track since Bristol Motor Speedway began monkeying with the top groove and added progressive banking.

Although it is not defined by them like Talladega SuperSpeedway, Dover is prone to “Big One” crashes with a narrow backstretch that can get clogged by an accident soon after a restart.

No one is absolutely safe except for Martin Truex Jr. and Harvick, and only three could finish worse than 15th and still breathe relatively easy. Kez, Kyle Busch, and Matt Kenseth would need a combination of multiple bad factors to fall out—but wasn’t the same thing true of Jimmie Johnson last year before the AAA 400?

One minor mistake is all it will take and that does not have to come from the driver himself. If one of the spoilers pushes too hard trying to get a top-10 and clips a car exiting turn two, the resulting melee could move the Chase race to the garage as multiple playoff contenders battle to see who can repair their car the fastest to stay ahead of their stricken competitors. Meanwhile, McMurray and Austin Dillon are only five points out of contention and they could sail toward the front.

Suddenly NASCAR’s unique formula of having non-playoff drivers in the same event as the contenders makes a very big difference—not because they are more likely to make a mistake (which they are), but because of the separation they add between a 20th-place finish and another Chaser who scores a top-10.

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Dover International Speedway is deceptive.

Drivers stopped trying to pigeonhole all tracks some time ago, which makes it effortless for them to avoid the phrase similarly-configured, 1.5-mile tracks on courses like last week’s Kansas Speedway venue. But even if that were not uniformly true, Dover would still defy description.

At one mile in length Dover track is adjacent to the short tracks. The high banks and rapidity with which drivers circle the oval certainly make it race more like a short track than speedway. The groove is narrow and treacherous and on several occasions throughout the years, there have been track-blocking “”Big One” crashes that make this course nearly as dangerous as Talladega SuperSpeedway or Daytona International Speedway. The cars are not running nose-to-tail like on the restrictor-plate, superspeedways, but with a horse track on the inside of the concrete oval, the backstretch is perilously narrow.

Drivers run around this track in about 22 seconds and even with 40 cars in attendance instead of the previous normal of 43, there is not a lot of room between vehicles when they get single file. As with a short track, drivers are constantly in traffic and it takes a combination of patience and aggression to succeed on this course. The equation is not perfectly balanced, however, and success leans toward those racers who are more likely to be patient. Jimmie Johnson stands head and shoulders above the competition with 10 wins on this track—and achieving double-digit victories on a course has not been common since Richard Petty and David Pearson left the series.

The next closest active drivers in terms of wins lean toward the aggressive side of the equation and have three apiece. Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart are unlikely to add to their totals this week, but one could see solid performances from the Busch brother or Kevin Harvick, who are also former winners.

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