The 2006 Dover 400 was the twenty-eighth stock car race of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the second in the ten-race season-ending Chase for the Nextel Cup. It was held on September 24, 2006 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware, before a crowd of 145,000. The 400-lap race was won by Jeff Burton of Richard Childress Racing, who started from 19th position. Carl Edwards of Roush Racing finished second and Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports came in third.
Although Gordon won the pole position, he was immediately passed by Ryan Newman at the start of the race. 27 laps later Carl Edwards took the lead for 21 laps. David Stremme briefly held the lead until Elliott Sadler moved in front of him to claim the position, only to lose it to Matt Kenseth on lap 74. Kenseth led more laps than any other driver (215), during which Reed Sorenson and Greg Biffle also led. Burton close the gap to Kenseth by the 375th lap and battled him for the position over the next 20 laps until he moved ahead on lap 395. Burton maintained the lead for the remaining five laps to win the race. There were ten cautions and twelve lead changes by nine different drivers during the race.
It was Burton's first win of the 2006 season, the 18th of his career, and it ended a 175-race winless streak. The result advanced him to the lead of the Drivers' Championship, six points ahead of Gordon (who moved up to second). Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, 42 points ahead of Ford and 45 in front of Dodge with seven races left in the season.
Background
The 2006 Dover 400 was the twenty-eighth of thirty-six scheduled stock car races of the 2006 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the second in the ten-race season-ending Chase for the Nextel Cup. It took place on September 24, 2006, in Dover, Delaware, at Dover International Speedway, a short track which holds NASCAR races. The NASCAR event makes use of the track's standard configuration, a four-turn short track oval that is long. The track's turns are banked at twenty-four degrees; both the front stretch (the location of the finish line) and the backstretch are banked at nine degrees.
Before the race, Kevin Harvick led the Drivers' Championship with 5,230 points, ahead of Denny Hamlin in second and Matt Kenseth third. Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton were fourth and fifth, and Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch rounded out the top ten drivers competing for the 2006 Chase for the Nextel Cup. Chevrolet led the Manufacturers' Championship with 204 points; Ford was second on 167 points, followed by Dodge on 162. Johnson was the race's defending champion.
After winning the previous race (at New Hampshire Motor Speedway), Harvick said his team hoped to stay competitive and was looking forward to the remainder of the season: "I am confident, [crew chief] Todd [Berrier] is confident, everybody is confident, but we aren't going to get cocky about it." Gordon stated he was not focussed on winning races, citing the average finishing position of 2005 champion Tony Stewart during that year's final ten races. Kenseth hoped he would secure a top-five finishing position at Dover, where he débuted in 1998, although he did not rule out the possibility of challenging for the victory.
Heading into the event, Roush Racing announced that Craftsman Truck Series driver David Ragan would make his début in the Nextel Cup Series in the team's No. 6 car. Ragan said he was looking forward to competing; "I never thought that the day would come this soon. It just goes to show that hard work and determination really can pay off. I have gotten a lot of racing experience in the Craftsman Truck Series that will help race with the guys in the Nextel Cup Series." Team owner Jack Roush stated the race would allow his team to evaluate Ragan's performance in view of a possible full-time race seat in 2007.
Practice and qualifying
Three practice session were held before the Sunday race: one on Friday and two on Saturday. The first session lasted 85 minutes, the second 60 minutes and the third 45 minutes. In the first practice session, Kahne was fastest with a time of 22.936 seconds; Greg Biffle was second and Gordon third. Edwards took fourth, and Scott Riggs placed fifth. Ryan Newman, J. J. Yeley, Joe Nemechek, Robby Gordon and Kurt Busch rounded out the session's top ten drivers. Tony Raines, Casey Mears and David Gilliland switched to back-up cars after they crashed.
Forty-seven cars were entered in the qualifier on Friday afternoon; according to NASCAR's qualifying procedure forty-three were allowed to race. Each driver ran two laps, with the starting order determined by their fastest lap times. Gordon clinched the 55th pole position of his career, and his first since the 2005 Dodge/Save Mart 350, with a time of 23.053 seconds which was recorded near the session's conclusion. He was joined on the grid's front row by Riggs and had the pole position until Gordon's lap. Riggs missed a gear shift on his lap which meant he overrevved his engine, and was required to change his car's power plant. Kenseth qualified third, Newman fourth and Nemechek fifth. Edwards, Reed Sorenson, Biffle, Martin and Kurt Busch rounded out the top ten qualifiers. Earnhardt, a Chase for the Nextel Cup driver, qualified thirteenth, and Johnson, another driver in the Chase, started eighteenth. Yeley crashed on his first lap after leaving turn one, and his rear-end contacted the wall; he was checked at the infield care center, and later released to continue racing. The four drivers who failed to qualify were Morgan Shepherd, Kenny Wallace, Chad Blount and Donnie Neuenberger. After the qualifier Gordon said: "It feels like my first pole ever. When it goes by for a while, you feel like you lost that magic touch or that combination that it took to get on poles. (It's) really the best car we have out there right now for this type of race track."
On Saturday morning Ryan Newman was fastest in the second practice session with a time of 23.655 seconds, ahead of Kahne and Stewart. Riggs was fourth-fastest; Clint Bowyer was fifth and Kenseth sixth. Kurt Busch, Biffle, Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch followed in the top ten. Of the other drivers in the Chase, Hamlin was twelfth-fastest and Harvick set the fourteenth-fastest time. Later that day, Earnhardt paced the final practice session (which was delayed by five minutes after paper notes left on Burton's car blew off and were scattered across turn one) with a lap of 23.798; Riggs was second and Edwards third. Sorenson was fourth-fastest, ahead of Kahne and Bowyer. Martin was seventh-fastest, Harvick eighth-, Kurt Busch ninth- and Johnson tenth-fastest. Other Chase drivers included Kyle Busch in thirteenth and Kenseth in fifteenth.
Qualifying results Grid Driver Team Manufacturer 124 Jeff Gordon Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 23.053 156.162 210 Scott Riggs Evernham Motorsports Dodge 23.068 156.060 317 Matt Kenseth Roush Racing Ford 23.079 155.986 412 Ryan Newman Penske Racing South Dodge 23.096 155.871 501 Joe Nemechek Ginn Racing Chevrolet 23.158 155.454 699 Carl Edwards Roush Racing Ford 23.171 155.367 741 Reed Sorenson Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 23.174 155.346 816 Greg Biffle Roush Racing Ford 23.188 155.253 96 Mark Martin Roush Racing Ford 23.212 155.092 102 Kurt Busch Penske Racing South Dodge 23.222 155.025 1149 Kevin Lepage BAM Racing Dodge 23.235 154.939 1214 Sterling Marlin MB2 Motorsports Chevrolet 23.266 154.732 138 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 23..279 154.646 147 Robby Gordon Robby Gordon Motorsports Chevrolet 23.296 154.533 1525 Brian Vickers Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 23.302 154.493 167 Clint Bowyer Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 23.314 154.414 1745 Kyle Petty Petty Enterprises Dodge 23.327 154.328 1848 Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 23.329 154.314 1931 Jeff Burton Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 23.331 154.301 2040 David Stremme Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 23.334 154.281 219 Kasey Kahne Evernham Motorsports Dodge 23.340 154.242 2220 Tony Stewart Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 23.367 154.063 2311 Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet 23.368 154.057 2442 Casey Mears Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge 23.369 154.050 2529 Kevin Harvick Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet 23.380 153.978 2643 Bobby Labonte Petty Enterprises Dodge 23.385 153.945 275 Kyle Busch Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet 23.439 153.590 2866 Jeff Green Haas CNC RacingChevrolet 23.453 153.499 2955 Michael Waltrip Waltrip-Jasper Racing Dodge 23.467 153.407 3032 Travis Kvapil PPI Motorsports Chevrolet 23.497 153.211 3174 Derrike Cope McGlynn Racing Dodge 23.515 153.094 3226 Jamie McMurray Roush Racing Ford 23.524 153.035 331 Martin Truex Jr. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet 23.551 152.860 3488 Dale Jarrett Robert Yates Racing Ford 23.580 152.672 3519 Elliott Sadler Evernham Motorsports Dodge 23.651 152.213 3621 Ken Schrader Wood Brothers Racing Ford 23.664 152.130 376 David Ragan Roush Racing Ford 23.746 151.605 3822 Dave Blaney Bill Davis Racing Dodge 23.748 151.592 3938 David Gilliland Robert Yates Racing Ford 23.756 151.541 4061 Stanton Barrett Front Row Motorsports Dodge 23.758 151.528 4196 Tony Raines Hall of Fame Racing Chevrolet 23.936 150.401 4218 J. J. Yeley Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet – – 434 Scott Wimmer Morgan-McClure Motorsports Chevrolet 23.765 151.483 4489 Morgan Shepherd Shepherd Racing Ventures Dodge 23.843 150.988 4578 Kenny Wallace Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet 23.872 150.804 4634 Chad Blount Front Row Motorsports Chevrolet 24.350 147.844 4752 Donnie Neuenberger Rick Ware Racing Dodge 25.098 143.438
Race Live television coverage of the race began at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time in the United States on TNT. Around the start of the race, weather conditions were partly cloudy with an air temperature of . Pastor Dan Schafer, of Calvary Assembly of God, began pre-race ceremonies with an invocation. Reality television personality and singer Brooke Hogan performed the national anthem, and wrestler Hulk Hogan commanded the drivers to start their engines. During the pace laps, three drivers moved to the rear of the field because of unapproved changes: Yeley had switched to his back-up car, and Riggs and Travis Kvapil had changed their engines.
The race started at 1:10 p.m. Newman accelerated faster than Gordon off the line and passed him around the outside in the first turn. The first caution was prompted two laps later when Kvapil spun after leaving turn four and hit the inside frontstretch wall, and heavily damaged his car but continued. After starting from 25th, Harvick had moved up to 21st by the first caution. Newman maintained the first position at the lap eight restart. Biffle was passed by Martin for seventh place on the next lap. Stewart lost control of his car and spun in turns three and four; he went up the track and collected Kahne, who was sent into the inside wall, causing the second caution on lap 13. Both Stewart and Kahne had heavy damage to their cars. Newman remained at the leader at the lap-16 restart. Seven laps later, Ken Schrader made contact with the rear-end of Ragan, who was sent spinning at turn four and stopped on the frontstretch, which triggered the third caution. Some of the leaders chose to make pit stops for tires and car adjustments under caution. Johnson was required to move to the end of the longest line, after a crew member allowed one of his tires to roll outside his pit stall.