By Mike Finney

DOVER — For a person as competitive as NASCAR champion Kyle Busch, a day like Sunday at Dover International Speedway must have seemed to be a painful eternity to get through, or at least a root canal.

Busch, who started the Drydene 400 Cup Series race in sixth place, fell off the pace with a sour-sounding engine on lap 29. He was lapped by Kyle Larson on lap 54 and continued to sink further back in the 37-car field.

Busch’s pit crew seemed to have fixed his engine issues during an extended pit stop between the first and second stages just after lap 120, however, the driver fell seven laps off the pace and found himself in the 37th – and last – running position.

Busch eventually finished in 27th place in his No. 18 Toyota, seven laps behind race winner Alex Bowman.

He entered Sunday’s race with 32 starts at Dover’s one-mile oval and 20 top-10 finishes. He has reached victory lane at Dover three times during his Cup career, including the most recent win in 2017.

Truex can’t cash in

Martin Truex Jr. entered Sunday’s race at Dover as the favorite to win. He started from the pole position but quickly lost the lead to William Byron and then fell to 11th after the competition caution on lap 35.

Truex remained close to the top 10 throughout the first stage but said he couldn’t get his Toyota to handle the way it needed to in order to be competitive. He finished 19th.

Truex had been on a streak of three consecutive runner-up finishes at the Monster Mile.

“This sport changes quickly and it’s very difficult,” said Truex. “We just need to keep pushing and working hard in the direction we’re going. I think the great part about it is we have a game plan. After last year weren’t happy with where we were and everybody went to work. We worked in a lot of key areas and did a lot of good things. We’re feeling good about it.”

Tough hit for Almirola

Aric Almirola has had a trying season after finishing among the top 15 in the Cup Series points standings the past three seasons. He entered Sunday’s race just 28th in the standings with an average finish of 24.4.

Dover inflicted even more pain on Almirola’s year as he crashed his Ford hard into the outside wall in the fourth turn with just 98 laps remaining in the Drydene 400.

Almirola walked gingerly to the safety vehicle as his car caught fire. Safety workers quickly extinguished the brief blaze.

“I’m OK but that was a really hard hit,” Almirola said. “My body is hurting and it doesn’t want to take any more hard hits like that. It’s just been such a trying year.

“I don’t know exactly what happened, I think my suspension broke. It wasn’t like a right-front (tire) went down. It wasn’t like all of a sudden.”

Standings leader Hamlin remains winless

Denny Hamlin has become the first points standings leader in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff Era (2004-2021) to compete in the first 13 races of a season and not win a race.

After finishing in seventh place at Dover, Hamlin’s winless streak has reached 17 events, dating back to Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 4, 2020.

“We probably had a fifth to sixth place FedEx Camry,” Hamlin said. “(Kevin) Harvick and I kind of battled to see who was going to be next behind the Hendrick cars. I just don’t know how it would have turned out any better or worse than seventh, where we ended up.”

No bridesmaid this time around for Berry

There was no second-place finish waiting for Josh Berry at the end of the Dryden 400 at Dover on Sunday, but he did enjoy competing in his first Cup Series race as a substitute driver for Justin Haley, who was forced to sit out the weekend’s races due to COVID-19 protocols.

It was still one heck of a weekend for Berry, who came in second in Friday’s ARCA Menard’s Series North race at Dover to winner Ty Gibbs and then backed that up as a runner-up in Saturday’s Xfinity Series race to Austin Cindric.

Unfortunately, Berry had a tire going down on lap 170 in Sunday’s race and he scrubbed the wall coming off the second turn, bringing out a caution flag.

Berry, who drives in a part-time role for Junior Motorsports’ No. 8 team in the Xfinity Series, credits his breakthrough Xfinity win at Martinsville Speedway last month as a catalyst to his recent success. In three of his last four Xfinity races, he has recorded his first win along with a pair of second-place efforts.

“I think it (winning at Martinsville) was a huge confidence-booster for all of us, a huge weight off our shoulders,” said Berry, who now has 16 career Xfinity Series starts. “I think I made it pretty clear how bad I wanted to win, and these guys did, too.

“Really, going into this opportunity, I felt like, man, if I won, that was like the epitome, the best possible scenario of winning a race. Really, we’ve had the chance to win several. These races are hard to win, the series is tough. I think we’re attracting a lot of attention and that’s amazing.”

Not-so-good numbers

Josh Bilicki became the first driver to go a lap down on lap 16 when Martin Truex Jr. dove low and William Byron went to the high side in turns one and two as Byron wrestled the lead away from Truex, who started from the pole position.

Almirola finished in 37th place – last at the Drydene 400.

Who is that unmasked man?

NASCAR fans were finally able to see their favorite driver’s faces while walking along pit road before and after the Drydene 400 at Dover on Sunday.

Last Thursday morning, NASCAR announced it had updated its event operations protocol and will no longer require masks when outdoors in the infield.

Masks will still be mandated inside buildings, team haulers, or any other enclosed spaces and where state or local mandates necessitate mask use.

“Going forward, our focus is on encouraging everyone to get vaccinated and preventing indoor spread of COVID-19,” NASCAR said in a statement.

Charlotte ready to go full capacity

While Dover International Speedway was permitted to have 20,000-socially distanced race fans at Sunday’s Drydene 400, Charlotte Motor Speedway will be taking it one step further on Memorial Day weekend.

In accordance with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s latest executive order, grandstand seating limitations have been lifted and increased to full capacity, opening the door for thousands more race fans to enjoy a tripleheader of NASCAR racing from May 28-30, which will be highlighted by the Cup Series Coca-Cola 600.

“We are thrilled with news that will allow fans to return to America’s Home for Racing without limitation,” said Greg Walter, executive vice president and general manager of Charlotte Motor Speedway. “From the outset of the pandemic, whether operating a drive-through testing clinic or hosting the state’s first mass vaccination event, this has been the ultimate goal – to get back to filling the grandstands for the biggest, most entertaining events in motorsports.”

Fans attending NASCAR race weekend will have the opportunity to receive a Johnson & Johnson single-dose COVID-19 vaccination on-site. Vaccines will be administered by Atrium Health to anyone 18 years of age or older at no cost. No appointment is necessary.

Pre-race festivities

Prior to the start of the Drydene 400, several individuals participated in the pre-race festivities, most of which were pre-recorded and shown over the video boards at the speedway.

The invocation was given by Rev. Dan Schafer, pastor of the Calvary Assembly of God in Heightstown, New Jersey, before Craig Moore, a U.S. Army Veteran and Broken Bow recording artist, sang the national anthem.

At the conclusion of the anthem during the pre-race flyover, members of Dover Air Force Base’s 3rd Airlift Squadron, “The Royals,” flew a C-17 Globemaster III past the turn four grandstands and off to the north of the racetrack.

Dave Klinger, president of Drydene Performance Products, then implored the Cup Series drivers to “Start your engines!” and the race was on. Based out of Warminster, Pennsylvania, Drydene sponsored both the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series races at Dover this weekend.