After two weeks on road/street courses the NASCAR Cup Series returns to an oval at Dover Motor Speedway this weekend. Dover is a one-mile true oval. It is one of three concrete tracks on the Cup Series schedule. The turns have 24 degrees of banking and the straightaways are banked at nine degrees.
Given Dover’s length, surface, and banking, it has no true comparable track on the schedule. Dover is nearly twice the length as Bristol Motor Speedway and has slightly less banking. When compared to Nashville Superspeedway Dover is approximately 25% shorter. Dover also has banking that is 10 degrees steeper in its turns. So while performance at Nashville, Bristol, and other intermediate tracks can be helpful in handicapping Dover, the most important factor in projecting future Dover performance is past performance at Dover.
Further complicating handicapping efforts this week is the fact that Goodyear is bringing a new tire compound to the race. Teams will be going into the weekend completely blind with regards to the tires. This is because while not only have the tires not been used in any other races, there was not even a tire test for these the new tire compounds. Additionally, this year’s race has been moved back several months from its April date of the past three years.
Tyler Reddick’s history at Dover is average. In six Cup Series starts his best finish is seventh and he has never led a lap. In the Xfinity Series Reddick has a third place finish in 2019 and fifth in 2018.
Despite his average history, there is reason to think that Reddick may be ready to breakthrough at the track. Over the past three years Reddick has made steady improvements in his performance at the track. Last year his average running position of 6.4 was fifth best among currently active drivers (as four time Dover winner Martin Truex Jr. has since retired).
Reddick is also preforming very well in the intermediate package in 2025. He has a Top 5 average running position, incident adjusted speed, and average true performance rating.
However, Reddick has had a number of incidents which have resulted in poor finishes. As a result his average finish at tracks using the intermediate package is just 14th best in the Cup Series. In the long run bad luck caused by others is unlikely to continue harming Reddick’s finishes. As such I’m betting on Reddick’s improvements at Dover and his bad luck coming to an end.
At Win The Race we simulate each NASCAR race 20,000 times using our proprietary performance scores. These scores fuel the simulations with the most reliable data, producing fair market value odds for winners, top 10s, podiums, manufacturers, and head-to-head matchups. The simulations for the EchoPark Automotive 400 show value on Tyler Reddick to win at most books. However, given that he hasn’t actually led here at Dover at the Cup level, I’m going to drop to his Top 3 and Top 5 odds.
At +500 to finish Top 3 and +275 to finish Top 5 the odds offered at Bet365 are much longer than the simulated results. Given the new tire and later time of year for the race I want to make sure I maintain a significant edge on these bets before practice. As such I would only bet Reddick’s Top 3 odds down to +400 and his Top 5 odds down to +220.
