NASCAR Cup

Dover II: Tony Raines preview

CORNELIUS, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006 -- Everyone has to start somewhere. Roger Staubach earned his first varsity football letter at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1962 -- just down the road from Dover International Speedway, site ...

Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:17 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

CORNELIUS, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006 -- Everyone has to start somewhere. Roger Staubach earned his first varsity football letter at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1962 -- just down the road from Dover International Speedway, site of this week's Dover 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series event.

Staubach, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, won the Heisman Trophy at Navy in 1963 and then won two Super Bowls in the 1970's with the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, Staubach co-owns Hall of Fame Racing with fellow Cowboy legend Troy Aikman and managing partner Bill Saunders, with Tony Raines piloting the No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevy.

Raines, like Staubach 40 years earlier, got his start in the Delaware/Maryland area.

Raines' first NASCAR Nextel Cup start came at Dover in June 2002. In fact, Raines has eight Nextel Cup starts at Dover, more than any other racetrack.

Being familiar with Dover certainly doesn't hurt, considering that the 1-mile, high-banked concrete track is considered one of the fastest and toughest tracks on the circuit.

TONY RAINES (No. 96 DLP HDTV Chevy):

Overall thoughts heading into Dover:

"It's definitely a tough track, but I think it's one of my better tracks. I've had some good runs there. I enjoy it, and I enjoy Bristol. To me, Dover's kind of like a big Bristol."

You made your first NASCAR Nextel Cup Series start at Dover in 2002. What do you remember about that?

"I remember we qualified well and had a good car. We ran respectable all race, but we ended up having some trouble and had to pit under green a couple times. I've always liked the place. I've run well there in the Busch cars and done respectable in the Cup cars. Not that it's my favorite track, but I enjoy that racetrack because it's tough. It's a long race, and the drivers earn their money there."

The track can be tough on equipment, how important is taking care of your car?

"It's no more important there than anywhere else, it's just at Dover, it's just so fast coming off the corners. It's really easy to brush the wall and pancake the side of it. If you hit the front wheels you'll knock the front end alignment out of it. It's just a little tougher because there is less room for error. The track can get pretty narrow."

What is your outlook going into Dover?

"I think we'll be OK. We had a decent run last week at New Hampshire, we just had a couple of things that hurt us. We can run in the top 15 or top 20, we just need to finish there. We're testing at Kentucky on Wednesday, so I think that will help us in a lot of ways. We've got all day to try different things, so that's a plus. When we've had a chance to test, we've usually done pretty well coming out of it. Hopefully, we can have a good run."

-credit: hofr

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Dover II: Elliott Sadler preview

Next article Chase takes center stage in Loudon

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

3 h

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

4 h

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

4 h

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

5 h

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts