“Why mess with a good thing?” Bob Pockrass’s verdict of the Rockingham race was tempered. Last weekend, NASCAR returned to the 0.94-mile D-shaped oval track after 12 years. The resurrection efforts proved fruitful as both Trucks and Xfinity delivered superb races. In Xfinity, Sammy Smith clinched the shock win after Jesse Love was disqualified. Despite his own driver’s good fortune, Dale Earnhardt Jr. agreed with Pockrass and preferred to keep The Rock’s influence limited.
Across the three NASCAR national series, the race cars differ widely. The most jaw-dropping difference is between the Next-Gen car in the Cup Series and the Xfinity car. The aerodynamic disparity makes both vehicles react differently to racetracks, which is why Dale Earnhardt Jr was pessimistic.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. confesses his doubts about The Rock
Well, last Saturday’s race featured multiple thrilling storylines. The North Carolina Education Lottery 250 race witnessed 14 cautions over 83 laps. Nine yellow flags were waved in the final stage. Despite this chaotic situation, drivers carved out marvelous performances that were unexpected. Parker Retzlaff clinched his first career top-five finish after overcoming technical issues in stage 2. His Alpha Prime Racing teammate, Brennan Poole, leaped from a 28th-place finish to 5th (became 4th after Love’s DQ). Then Dean Thompson scored the first-ever stage win for Sam Hunt Racing in Stage 2. These stories of success enthralled the fans and Dale Earnhardt Jr. However, the JR Motorsports owner did not show a thumbs-up to the prospects of expansion.
During the NASCAR Cup Series’ last outing at Bristol Motor Speedway, there was chaos. After a high tire-wear situation in practice, all teams prepared accordingly for the race. But all the strategies flipped again when drivers realized 50 laps into the race that Goodyear’s tires are not working. Therefore, the typical difficulty in passing was visible in the Next-Gen car all over again. With this lack of predictability in Cup cars, Dale Earnhardt Jr laid down his verdict about Rockingham in a recent episode of the Dale Jr Download. “My thought is that this might not need to be a Cup race. I’m sure people are clamoring to see Cup go back there, but the way the Cup car races, isn’t it funny? Like we’re sitting here and going, ‘Yeah, this is the first time I’ve ever experienced this’.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. went on to explain that Rockingham Speedway may be too tricky for the Next-Gen car. “At that racetrack, there’s really nowhere to go to get clean air…the entrance into 1 is a bit narrow and odd. The exit of 2 is tight. The wall jumps out at you…In the Next-Gen car, you really can’t run behind another car. You can’t be fast and running…The lead car’s got a lot of grip, but also you need that air going underneath your car to get to the diffuser…How are you going to do that, running around the racetrack at Rockingham?” So the veteran emphasized his conclusion yet again: “I’m excited for the Xfinity and Trucks to go there again, but I’m not eager to see a Cup race there.”
Rockingham Speedway president and CEO of Track Enterprises, Bob Sargent, had a wholly different view, though. Sargent was overly enthusiastic about the Cup Series coming to ‘The Rock.’ Sargent said more people concur with him, “I’m pretty hands-on, so I talked to them from Thursday night, when we got here, to all day today. Talked to a lot of different people at NASCAR, whether they were here or weren’t here.“Older, veteran drivers that I got relationships with, they were texting me, calling me. And then again, the sponsors who were here, I talked with them all day long. The fans. The officials. My workers. A lot of positives from everybody.”
However, fans are siding with their hero of the sport. After all, Dale Earnhardt Jr’s views about the Next-Gen car are widely shared.