Mother Nature Has Been Cruel to Dover — Should Its Date Move?

It had been a rough couple of years for Dover Motor Speedway on the NASCAR schedule.

With dwindling attendance, its playoff date on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule was dropped for the 2020 season, and that second date was dropped entirely the following year. The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series date was shelved after 2020 as well, and Dover has had just one Cup and Xfinity series race each on the schedule since 2021.

The track became a part of Speedway Motorsports for 2022, and while there have been concerns about the track’s future in NASCAR, last year’s Cup race had one of the best turnouts at Dover in years … until rain postponed the final 320 laps to Monday. Likewise, Monday’s (May 1) race at Dover also had good attendance despite the complete washout to Monday.

But if the goal is for Dover to remain an annual staple on the calendar, there’s three problems to address: rain, rain and rain.

Traditionally held in the first weekend of June, Dover’s Cup date was moved to the first weekend of May (or, in this year’s case, the last week of April) for 2018 and beyond.

Let’s just say that Mother Nature was not a fan of the change.

• 2018: Sunday race that featured a rain delay with 84 laps to go
• 2019: Race was rained out to Monday
• 2020: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dover was scheduled as a doubleheader in August.
• 2021: Race ran on Sunday, but the race ended with ominous skies and an impending downpour
• 2022: First 80 laps run on Sunday while the rest was run on Monday
• 2023: Race was rained out to Monday

Whether it was a rain delay, a postponement or a threat of rain, every single Cup race at Dover has been impacted by rain since its switch to the first week of May on the calendar. The last time that a Dover race in June was postponed to Monday was 2007; it’s now happened in three of the last four May editions.

It’s hard for a track to acquire momentum or interest when it’s almost a given for uncooperative weather. And for a track that doesn’t have lights like Dover, the problems are only exacerbated.

And for Dover’s place on the schedule, there are now five years of evidence that the current date isn’t working for anyone involved (except Martin Truex Jr., more on that later).

But when looking at the climate data for Dover, Del., from 1991 to 2020, the month of May received less precipitation on average than June. Has it just been a cartoonish string of bad luck with Dover in early…