Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a lot of things. He’s a husband, father, a NASCAR Hall of Famer, a team co-owner, a broadcaster and more. But Junior will be the first to admit that he’ll never be a good teacher of young talent.
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With reports this week that NASCAR is reportedly considering partly lifting the limits on how many Xfinity and Truck Series races Cup drivers can enter (it’s currently at a combined five starts for Cup drivers), Earnhardt agrees that young drivers coming up through the ranks would learn from their Cup heroes, but Junior isn’t among those doing the teaching.
On this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Earnhardt talked about NASCAR potentially increasing the number of Xfinity (soon to be O’Reilly Auto Parts) Series and Truck Series starts that a Cup driver can make, while at the same time maintaining a fair balance.
The last thing NASCAR wants to see is a return to the 2000s where guys like Kyle Busch competed in almost every second- and third-tier race in addition to their full-time Cup efforts. In fact, Busch was practically the one guy who singlehandedly convinced NASCAR to drastically cut the number of Xfinity or Truck races a Cup driver could compete in.
Busch has more Xfinity and Truck wins than in Cup
While Busch has 63 wins and two championships as a Cup driver, he has 102 wins and one championship in 367 Xfinity starts and 67 wins in 180 starts in a Truck.
“I think it’d be good if they could run more, but there has to be a balance,” Earnhardt said. “I could see them making an announcement like, ‘Hey, man, we’re going to change it to 10 (combined O’Reilly or Truck starts).’
“Hopefully, they don’t remove it altogether to where we have like Cup guys running for the (O’Reilly or Truck) championship. That would be really hard on teams like ours.”
While increasing the number of starts a Cup driver could make in the lower tiers would be popular among race fans, it would be difficult for NASCAR to mandate that Cup drivers act as teachers or mentors in lieu of being allowed to drop down in classes.
“All you need really is one good Cup guy,” Earnhardt said. “I raced Cup guys in the ’98 and ’99 (Busch Series) seasons (when we won both seasons’ championships). There were some Cup guys that would come in there and run.
“But the one that we all learned from was Mark Martin. I remember getting my ass kicked by Jeff Burton and a few other guys for sure during those years, but the one man that was really the teacher was Mark.
“If you get one Cup guy that really would commit to the series, that was truly a good teacher, like somebody that wanted to help you, talk to you at the driver’s introduction, want to show you things to make you better at every track, that’d be awesome for the young guys.”
Earnhardt admitted he wasn’t a great teacher when he’d dip down to the Xfinity ranks. “I don’t know that I was a great teacher,” Junior said. “When I was running the Cup car in the 2000s and I started running some Xfinity races, I would just show up and run them and wouldn’t think much about it. I wasn’t really helping the kids.
“But Mark was really good at making you better and helping you get better. All you need is one good Cup guy that will be a mentor. You don’t need like 10 of them out there. Just one kickass guy that’s out there being a good teacher.”
