Shane van Gisbergen is the man of the week after winning the inaugural Cup Series race at Mexico City last Sunday. His win secured him a spot in the playoffs, although his position on the points table is far too low at 30th place. In light of this questionable green light that NASCAR’s format has given him to race for the title in the postseason, Richard Petty delivered a scathing statement.
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He said that road courses aren’t NASCAR racing and suggested that winning a race on one shouldn’t be reason enough for a driver to be given such a valuable prize. His words came in response to a question by a fan on social media and went, “The way they got this thing fixed, you win and you’re in — that can’t be right.”
“From the standpoint that you got somebody 30th in points, that’s going to make the playoffs,” he added. “What happened to the guy that’s 15th or 16th or 18th? You’re making a championship situation by winning a road course, which is not really NASCAR to begin with.” It’s easy to see why his opinion has become a talking point.
Road courses have become an integral part of NASCAR racing in recent years and are only growing in influence. Petty’s thoughts could be considered old-fashioned and rigid. Yet one surprising source of support has been Dale Earnhardt Jr. The popular icon discussed Petty’s words on The Dale Jr. Download and sided with them.
He explained that road courses were simply not important back in the day when he was a youngster, and that no driver took them seriously enough to try winning them at a cost. “That’s the way it was,” he said. “I think that’s where Richard Petty is coming from when he says road course racing isn’t really NASCAR.”
Even aspiring NASCAR drivers back then raced and tested themselves on oval tracks. Those track types are the known and understood roots of stock car racing. So, when Petty says that road courses aren’t NASCAR racing, there is an element of nostalgic truth to his words. But as Junior continued to state, that was yesterday’s NASCAR.
Does Dale Earnhardt Jr. want more road courses on the schedule?
Junior was clear about the fact that today’s NASCAR is a lot different from what he or Petty experienced back in the 1980s and 1990s. The scene is a lot more diverse now with ovals, intermediates, and road courses. But this understanding hasn’t led Junior to want more road courses to occupy slots in the Cup Series calendar.
He said, “I think we have a good amount of road courses. I don’t like the road courses the most. Right now, I would say my favorite thing about the sport is the Charlottes and the Kansases. That’s what I am enjoying right now the most. I wish that the short tracks were better because that’s where my core is.”
Junior could also warm up to road courses as long as they are as entertaining as the race in Mexico City was. But he doesn’t want to sit in his studio making schedule suggestions that he knows NASCAR won’t consider.
