There’s no doubt that the recent Cup race at Atlanta was one of the most exciting races in recent memory. And a big part of that was the factor of the weather, which resulted in a rain-shortened race. This made many wonder and somewhat demand that NASCAR should explore or even implement shorter races to create more exciting racing. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t think so.
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The Hall of Famer, who is a huge advocate for the progressiveness of the sport while sticking to the core values of the foundations of it, recently addressed the idea of shortening of races. It’s worth mentioning that Earnhardt Jr. was in agreement with NASCAR’s decision in Atlanta to prematurely end the race.
But he disagreed with implementing such a thing across other races.
Junior insists there are bigger things to fix before exploring ideas of shortening the races
Speaking in a recent episode of his podcast show, Earnhardt Jr. opened up on his thoughts on the Atlanta race as well as the idea of shortening other races in the future by default for more exciting racing. He said, “We have one of our most entertaining products at Atlanta and we got people talking about shortening that race where we have work to do in other places.”
“Short track package, road course package, we got work to do! I mean, stay focused. Shortening up a race that’s fricking totally f*****g fine.”
“Focus.”
There are bigger issues at hand than shortening a race that was entertaining from start to finish. 🏁
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed he’s getting tired of negativity in NASCAR
During a podcast episode after Martinsville from a few months ago, Earnhardt claimed he’s getting “really exhausted” with the feeling that every week there’s something to fix in NASCAR.
“I feel like every single week, we watch a race, and we come out of that race, and instead of going, ‘Man, that was awesome, an incredible race, that track delivers, that was a hell of a battle.’ Instead, we come out of there and go, ‘Man, that sucked. We need to fix this,” he said.
Earnhardt added that while he too is guilty of doing the same thing, he isn’t sure whether there are some real problems that need to be fixed or whether this is the new norm in how everyone reacts after a race every week.
