NASCAR odds: Best Buy 400

After spending a few weeks in Charlotte, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads to Dover International Speedway, the Monster Mile, on Sunday for the Best Buy 400.

Perhaps Dover and it being June will be the perfect tonic for Tony Stewart, who is winless in 2008. Actually, seven times in his he has been winless in the first four months of the season - although he nearly won at Charlotte last week.

"When guys can't hold it wide open and they can't sit there on high-grip tracks and they actually have to drive these things -- that's when we start getting fast," said Stewart, whose first victory of the 2000 season was at Dover.

Stewart won both races at Dover that year, the highlight of a stretch from 1999 to 2004 when he finished in the top 10 in 11 of 12 races and led nearly a quarter of the laps. In the six races since, though, Stewart has one top 10.Kasey Kahne has won two weeks in a row, but if history is any guide he won't make it three. Kahne hasn't finished five of his eight starts at Dover and has only one top-10 finish.

Of Kahne's eight Cup victories; seven have come at speedways at least 1.5 miles in length, such as the last two weekends at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Sprint All-Star Race (a non-points earner) and Coca-Cola 600.

"I feel like our cars are better than what I thought they were three, four weeks ago. It's been fun to drive again the last few weeks. We're starting to hit on it," Kahne said.

Kyle Busch has two wins, a second and a third in the past four point’s races, so there's no wonder he is the WagerWeb.com favorite this week.

The smart money might be on Carl Edwards this week. Edwards, who won at the track last fall, has the best average finish (9.1) and hasn't placed outside the top 20 in seven starts.

The co-leaders in career wins at Dover in this weekend's race field are Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon, with four victories each. Gordon, who last won at Dover in 2001, is looking for his first win of the season. Gordon signed a two-year contract extension this week with Hendrick Motorsports and his sponsor, DuPont. In his last three points races, Gordon has an average finish of nearly 5th. At Richmond he came from 28th up to 9th. He led 24 laps at Darlington before settling for 3rd. In last week's Coca-Cola 600, he wound up 4th.

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