Off to Dover

At the track

As we are walking over to the track I act as a tour guide, I know it's not a long walk to the track, but I love to tell people about this most unique race track. "Dover International Speedway was opened in 1969 and was built by Melvin Joseph of Melvin L. Joseph Construction Company, Inc. The construction for this new track was on Dover Downs International Speedway, which was known for auto and horse racing. Building began in 1966 and was completed in 3 years, which meant on July 6th, 1969 they had the inaugural race here which was the Mason- Dixon 300 and was won by the king himself, a.k.a. Richard Petty. Now this track has been pure concrete since 1995, because originally this track's surface was asphalt. In 2001, the track's capacity was increased to 135,000, which made this the largest capacity of sports venues in the Mid- Atlantic. In 2002 the name of the track changed to Dover International because Dover Downs Gaming and Entertainment split. In 2007 to 2009 the track went through an improvement project which was called "The Monster Makeover" which would expand facilities at the track and beautify it. Sadly after the 2014 season the capacity of seats went down to 95,000 because of low attendance. Student:"Tell us more about Miles the Monster" (by the way we are almost to the track.) "Ok, so Miles the Monster was named after one of the nicknames this track has which is the Monster Mile. A mini statue of him is on all the winner's trophy, track's tickets, memorabilia, the Dover International Speedway website, and the 46- foot (14 meters) Monster Monument. One of the previous nicknames the track had was White Lighting. Now the nicknames currently are concrete jungle and Monster Mile!" Before you know it we are at the "entrance" to the outside of the track. "Welcome everyone to the Monster Mile! :)" Everyone looks around in awe. "As you can see, this is the outside of the track, here you can get food, merchandise, go to autograph sessions, visit the fan zone, etc. Since it's 9:00, everyone can go pick out some merchandise at any of the merchandise trailers for free! Just give them this!" I hand out to everyone a coupon that states that you can get free merchandise at any of the trailers and Monster Mile store. Everyone puts their coupon in their lanyards. "Those coupons won't expire till Monday. So everyone go do some shopping and then we will head to the garage area after! Meet me back here in 20 minutes." Everyone walks away and goes and does some shopping, so I head to Jeff Gordon's trailer and purchase a last ride shirt and hat, then I head to the Monster Mile store to purchase a Miles the Monster plushie and diecast, and finally to Kevin Harvick's trailer to purchase a Kevin Harvick Budweiser pit crew shirt. 20 minutes later everyone meets me back at the spot I said to meet at. "Before we head to the garage area, how you all loud to take a big group picture in front of Miles the Monster?" Everyone replies with: "Yes" We all take s big group picture (the pose was holding up #1). Now we head to the entrance to the start-finish kind seats, and I show my cold pass to the security guy. Everyone else does the same and now we head to the bottom of the track at the start-finish line to claim onto the pit wall. We climb onto the pit wall and go on the other side, and now we all walk towards the garage area with me leading the group.