History of Dover International Speedway

Dover International Speedway (nickname: The Monster Mile) is a NASCAR race track located in Dover, Delaware, owned by, and serving as the corporate headquarters of, Dover Motorsports. It is unusual in several respects. It is a concrete track while most NASCAR tracks are asphalt. It is co-located with a horse racing track, Dover Downs, and in fact is sometimes also referred to by this name. It is also exactly one mile long; technically this means that it is neither a superspeedway nor a short track. The speedway is also notoriously hard on cars, bringing about its nickname of The Monster Mile. The horse track is part of an extensive entertainment complex including other forms of gambling; at one time both it and the speedway were owned by the publicly traded Dover Downs Entertainment, but they have since been split into two separate enterprises, partly at the encouragement of NASCAR. At one time the Winston Cup races held here were 500 miles long until a NASCAR rules change limited 500 mile races to being held only at tracks over a mile in length; the current Nextel Cup races here are 400 miles long. Dover also hosted Indy Racing League races in 1998 and 1999 won by Scott Sharp and Greg Ray.

In February 2002, Dover Downs Entertainment changed its name to Dover Motorsports following the spin-off of its gaming operations to its existing shareholders. As a result, the name of the track was changed from Dover Downs International Speedway to Dover International Speedway. Dover Motorsports, Inc. continues to maintain its corporate headquarters at the racetrack.

Dover Motorsports (formerly Dover Downs Entertainment) which owns Dover International Speedway also owns several other racing facilities, including Nashville Superspeedway. It has been suggested that one of the two current Cup races held there could be shifted to Nashville but this seems unlikely as both current Cup races at Dover experience strong attendance. The Dover ownership is one of only three publicly held ownership groups of NASCAR tracks, the other two being International Speedway Corporation, controlled by NASCAR's founding France family and owners of the Talladega and Daytona tracks, among others, and Speedway Motorsports, Inc., led by Bruton Smith and H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler, which owns Lowe's Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway, among others. Aside from these three ownership groups, NASCAR tracks are privately held by one or a few individuals.

The speedway has a brand new mascot called Miles the Monster which is a concrete monster in 2004 hence the track's nickname, "The Monster Mile." Many people refer to Dover International Speedway as the Dover Monster or "Miles". It is featured on the winner's trophy and the track tickets and memorabilia. A previous nickname that the track had was the "White Lightning."

The winner of each race gets to sign the seat that matches their respective car number in the DuPont Tower, Martin Truex Jr. signed seat number one and Carl Edwards autographed seat number 99 as winner of the fall event in 2007.