Monster Mile Preview & Congrats To “The Butcher”

TV ratings for the Coca-Cola 600 were huge. They were the highest ratings ever and even better than the TV ratings for the Indy 500, which lost five-percent of viewers compared to last year.

From Charlotte, Sprint Cup drivers head north to the Monster Mile at Dover.

After 12 races, Greg Biffle’s lead in the standings is up to 12 points over second place Matt Kenseth.

Kenseth is heading to a track where he’s had a lot of success. He has a streak of seven straight top-10 finishes at Dover including victories last year and in 2006.  Kenseth finished 10th last week and has eight top-10 finishes this season, including a win at Daytona earlier this year.

Jimmie Johnson leads all active drivers with six wins at Dover and stands one victory away from tying Bobby Allison and Richard Petty for most all-time wins at Dover.  Back in 2010, Kyle Busch benefited from Johnson's pit-road speeding penalty to win the spring race at Dover.

Originally it was a 300 mile race, bumped up to 500 miles in 1971 then back down to 400 miles in 1997. There have been 84 Sprint Cup races at Dover since the track opened in 1969. There have been two races a year since 1971.

Congratulations to local driver Donald Palmer.  You might better remember him as "the Butcher" - the long-time batboy for the Buffalo Bisons.  He's been racing cars at Holland Speedway for 20 years and last weekend he won a race for the first time in his career.  He won the M&M U Pull-It Figure 8 car feature.  Congratulations to "the Butcher."