AAA 400

Not be confused with the AAA Texas 500, another AAA-sponsored NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, but it takes place at Texas Motor Speedway.

The AAA 400 is the second of two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car races held at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delaware. It is now held on the first weekend of October. It is the third race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup after the 2011 realignment.

Past winners

• 2005: Race extended due to a Green-white-checker finish.

Notable Races

• 1971: Bobby Allison dominated the race until a lug bolt broke on a pit stop, putting Richard Petty into the lead in the final 100 laps en route to the win.
• 1975: Richard Petty put the entire field two laps down until at Lap 350 he ran over debris from a backmarker's blown engine that broke a tie rod. Petty spent eight laps in the pits getting a new tie rod and came out six laps down. While Lennie Pond blew his engine Petty erased all six laps, but needed a late yellow when Buddy Arrington stopped on the track with fifteen to go. Petty breezed to the win, leaving runner-up Dick Brooks angry at Arrington, who'd recently purchased a transporter from Petty Enterprises: "I guess Arrington needed that truck paid for."
• 1976: Cale Yarborough lost two laps on two separate occasions and made them up en route to the win.
• 1977: Benny Parsons dominated the race after Lap 250.
• 1978: Bobby Allison won after a recent visit to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup.
• 1979: Richard Petty, Donnie Allison, and Cale Yarborough battled over the final 30 laps; Petty edged Allison by a hood at the stripe.
• 1983: Bobby Allison edged Geoff Bodine for the win, his sixth of the season en route to his only Winston Cup title.
• 1986: Ricky Rudd took his first Dover win as title contenders Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond crashed and raced each other with damaged race cars despite being multiple laps down.
• 1991: Multiple crashes put Harry Gant alone on the lead lap for his third straight win of September 1991.
• 1992: Ricky Rudd edged Bill Elliott as Alan Kulwicki crashed, putting him seemingly out of the season point chase.
• 1993: Tire failures and crashes, including a multi-car melee detonated when Rusty Wallace hammered another car into the path of the leaders, plagued the 1993 500 won by Wallace.
• 1995: In a race with only five yellows Jeff Gordon and Bobby Hamilton dominated en route to a 1-2 finish.
• 1996: Gordon and Dale Earnhardt battled amid an epidemic of crashes. Ernie Irvan crashed ahead of Derrike Cope and crew chief Larry McReynolds attacked Cope in the garage area. A three-car melee led to a near-brawl on the track between Jimmy Spencer and Wally Dallenbach, Jr. Following this race NASCAR raised the sanction fee for a 500-mile race, forcing Dover to cut back to 400 miles.
• 2001: In the first NASCAR sactioned Cup race following the September 11, 2001 attacks, (the previous race scheduled for New Hampshire Speedway was postponed until the end of the season) a silent lap 3, which was a season-long scheduled event in memory of Dale Earnhardt who had died in a crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, was changed to include the memory of the victims of the attacks. Dale Earnhardt Jr won the race and celebrated by doing a Polish victory lap while holding an American flag in salute.
• 2006: Jeff Burton broke a 185 race winless streak passing Matt Kenseth with 8 laps to go. This was a very emotional win for Jeff.
• 2009: Joey Logano flipped 8 times in turn 3 after being tapped by Tony Stewart, Though a couple cars ahead of Logano had braked going into the corner. Joey was OK after the wreck.

Television broadcasters

References