In the wake of Shane van Gisbergen’s fourth win at a road course this season, insiders and fans alike are debating the merits of having so many road courses on the schedule. Is it too many? It is for one popular NASCAR figure: Dale Earnhardt Jr. But perhaps not for the reasons you may think. […]
In the wake of Shane van Gisbergen’s fourth win at a road course this season, insiders and fans alike are debating the merits of having so many road courses on the schedule. Is it too many?
It is for one popular NASCAR figure: Dale Earnhardt Jr. But perhaps not for the reasons you may think.
“Nobody wants to get rid of, listen to this, this is really important: Nobody wants to get rid of road courses because SVG’s great,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download. “I mean if I was Trackhouse and anybody that worked there, I want more road courses. I want 12.
“So nobody’s wanting to get rid of road courses because SVG is great. I look forward to going to road courses to see if he can be beat. What I think is [the] point is that the car struggles at road courses. It has since it came in.”
The primary issue that Earnhardt has with them isn’t actually with the courses themselves. Instead, it’s about how the car handles at those types of tracks.
Simply put, the car struggles. Earnhardt suggested it’s about the aerodynamics of the car not being suited to them. Because the car doesn’t perform well at road courses, fans aren’t seeing what they’re used to.
“We expect a faster car to be able to overtake with no problem,” he said. “We expect contact. We expect door to door. That’s our expectation, because of the last 75 years of what we’ve seen. So when we come up on a road course now and we don’t see what we expect, we’re not willing to allow this type of product to be normalized. Or we hope that this won’t be normalized.
“Maybe in 10 years this f****** car is amazing on road courses and we want more road courses back. The great thing about it is we can have that. We can do that. The series and the schedule and everything can ebb and flow as according to how the supply and demand.”
So where does Earnhardt fall out on the right number for NASCAR in a given season? He laid out his number.
First, though, he noted he expected to be on the less popular side of the vote. He began:
“My opinion on how many road courses we should have is going to be in the minority,” Earnhardt said. “I know that the way I feel about it is probably only about what 10% of the fanbase thinks. I like two road courses. I like Sonoma, I like Watkins Glen.
“I’m fine with a couple. And now I know that that’s the minority, so that’s why I don’t really talk about it too much and I don’t go on social media. Because I know that’s not realistic in the environment we have today.”
Earnhardt pointed out to the different makeup of the NASCAR fanbase as evidence he may be in the minority on the appropriate number of road courses. Younger fans may want more.
“They don’t look at NASCAR the way I look at it,” he said. “They look at it and they see a different identity. They see a different history. They see a different sort of… I’m understanding that my personal opinion may not be that popular. I’m OK with four.”
Category: General Sports
