Story lines: Dover

DOVER, Del. – Had it not been for the Dale Earnhardt Jr.-Tony Eury Jr. split, David Reutimann would be the talk of the Autism Speaks 400.

The 39-year-old won the first Cup race of his career in last weekend’s rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600, then backed that up by claiming the pole for Sunday’s race.

“I think it gives the shop a little momentum because those guys work so hard on everything,” Reutimann said Friday of the win. “For me, I would like to win a race a little differently than that, but you take them any way you can get them.”

Rain-shortened race or not, Reutimann is now a Cup winner, which had his phone lighting up Monday. When he finally was able to check his cell, he found 160 text messages and 78 voicemails. He even received a call from Tony Stewart, who during one rain delay in Monday’s race had some harsh words for how Reutimann raced him.

“I didn’t do that for everybody to know about,” Stewart said. “I just did it for me and him. It was more to congratulate him because I like David.”

The win vaulted Reutimann two spots in the standings to 13th, just six points out of the top 12.

Here are five story lines to look for in Sunday’s Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway:

1. How will Dale Earnhardt Jr. respond to the crew chief change?

Brian Whitesell, team manager for both Junior’s 88 and Mark Martin’s 5 car, will serve as crew chief this weekend. Lance McGrew, who already was scheduled to crew for Brad Keselowski on Sunday, will officially take the reins in next weekend’s Pocono 500.

“Everything seems to be going pretty good throughout the first practice,” Earnhardt said Friday. “Everybody’s attitudes are real good and the work on the car and everything is going pretty well. We’re looking forward to seeing how things go this weekend, hoping to have a good weekend, and I guess Monday we’ll get back to the shop. We’ll start preparing for Pocono and discussing with Lance on how that preparation is going to go throughout the week.”

Earnhardt qualified 22nd for Sunday’s race.

2. Will Ryan Newman’s streak continue?

Newman, who had just two top-five finishes all of last year, has finished in the top five in each of the last four races, marking the sport’s biggest turnaround.

Following the Kobalt Tools 400 in March, the fourth race of the season, Newman was 32nd in the Cup standings, with a season-best finish of 22nd. He enters Sunday’s race seventh in the standings.

“A lot of people have been instrumental in helping make the U.S. Army Chevrolet faster each week and working on our pit stops, working on our race cars, working on down force and things like that,” said Newman, who qualified 11th. “It’s been a lot of fun and we just want to keep the ball rolling.”

3. Can Jeff Gordon work his way through the field?

Gordon slapped the wall hard during his qualifying lap on Friday. His car took on enough damage that Gordon was forced to his back-up car. Worse, he’ll line up 42nd, his worst starting position of the season.

“It’s going to make for a long weekend here in Dover, but we’ve got the team and the car to be able to get off the truck and come back and still be very competitive,” Gordon said.

“The car through [Turns] 3 and 4 is incredibly good coming to the green. So that’s my tell-tale sign of what kind of grip and what kind of balance we had, and I got into Turn [1] and the car felt good and got back into the gas and the back end just came around on me just a tiny bit. I tried to correct it and obviously you can see what happened. It just shot straight into the fence. That was a hard hit.”

Gordon was 17th in Saturday’s final practice.

4. Will Dover’s new pit road impact the race?

Dover International Speedway has always had a tricky pit road, especially so when there were only 42 stalls for 43 drivers, meaning two teams had to share.

That’s not the case anymore after the track underwent an extensive six-month renovation that extended pit road to accommodate 43 stalls.

In order to fit 43 stalls, the wall that separates pit road from the track had to be extended 432 feet. To help with the transition from the track to pit road, an apron was created to allow space for drivers to slow their cars before the commitment line to pit road.

“I think the pit entrance is going to be a little bit harder to get in and stop,” Juan Pablo Montoya said. “Do you want to stay on the track and park the car on the track before you come down, or are you going to come off the banking before Turn 3? It’s always going to be a question and it’s going to be quite a challenge, I think.”

5. Will there be another first-time winner?

Already this season there have been two first-time winners – Reutimann last week and Brad Keselowski last month at Talladega.

The last time the Cup series had multiple first-time winners in the same season was 2007 (Casey Mears, Martin Truex Jr. and Juan Pablo Montoya).

Two drivers who are knocking on the door for their first Cup win include Joey Logano (starting 21st) and Sam Hornish Jr. (11th). Both have improved tremendously over the past month, with Hornish collecting the first two top 10s of his Cup career and Logano finishing in the top 10 in three of the last four races.