DOVER – With the Dover International Speedway down to just one race weekend in 2021, local NASCAR fans learned recently that they will also be losing one of their three typical racing mainstays.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will skip the Monster Mile in its 22-race season next year. The trucks had raced at Dover for at least the last 20 years, and in the spring weekend for the last 19, but the Friday, May 14, race will now be the regional-tier ARCA Menards Series East stock car race.
The ARCA Menards Series had typically raced at Dover in the late summer race weekend but will now slot into the May offerings as the higher-tier Camping World Truck Series choses to jump to the Nashville Superspeedway in June.
Dover Motorsports, the publicly traded company that owns Dover International Speedway, announced last summer that it was moving one of its two race weekends from Delaware to its newly renovated track in Tennessee starting in 2021. The Nashville Superspeedway will see races from June 18-20.
The loss of the Truck Series came a bit of an awkward time, after Dover Motorsports signed a five-year title sponsorship agreement for the Truck Series with KDI Office Technology in July. KDI, of Aston, Pa., began sponsoring the Dover truck races in 2020. It’s also the official and exclusive business solutions provider to the Monster Mile and has held naming rights to the track’s Infield Media Center since 2018.
The independent, family-owned office technology provider has seven locations in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, but it will now expand its brand awareness with the jump to the Southern track.
“KDI’s business and marketing relationship with Dover Motorsports Inc. is expanding to include both Nashville Superspeedway and Dover International Speedway. We are working together to support their marketing goals with the most appropriate assets at each property,” said Michael Lewis, director of communications for Dover Motorsports.
The ARCA Menards Series race already had General Tire as its title sponsor for the third consecutive year, while the top-tier Cup Series race is sponsored by Drydene Performance Products, headquartered in Warminster, Pa. Only the May 15 NASCAR Xfinity Series Race, the second highest level of competition, has yet to secure a sponsor.
Deals like those from KDI and Drydene are the third largest revenue source for Dover Motorsports after TV broadcasting rights, which brought in $35.6 million in 2020, and admissions, which were a total loss this year after fans were not allowed by state health officials to attend the six-day race weekend in August due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, the races brought in nearly $5 million at the gate.
The sponsorship revenue for races and other racetrack amenities brought in $2.7 million this year, down about $1 million from 2019 due to the lack of fans impacting contracts and the cancellation of the 2020 Firefly Music Festival.
