“If I won the championship, I would retire on the stage in Vegas,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said before announcing his retirement way back in 2017. And he stuck to his words as he dropped the ball at the LVMS in 2017. Junior and Las Vegas? They were a match made in racing heaven. This track had been his playground with him tearing it up with strong finishes in NASCAR and Xfinity races. His back-to-back top-10s in 2014, and Hendrick Motorsports had him and his teammates shining in the top 10. When Junior talks about Vegas, it’s not just noise, it’s history. But now with his co-host TJ he debunks an unusual nut delicious aspect regarding the playoffs.
Dale’s had some thoughts about the playoffs already, and he wasn’t shy about it. Last year on his podcast, he jumped into the playoff debate sparked by Denny Hamlin’s push for a best-of-three format. “I just think that stock cars and short tracks and oval tracks and mile-and-a-halfs and Darlington’s and all those, that’s NASCAR to me, so I would want it to be three ovals,” Dale Jr. explained, laying out his vision clear as day.
Now, NASCAR’s playoff saga is a tangled wreck, and Dale’s wading through it. Rumor mills are running about how the France family’s been scheming a playoff overhaul, maybe even unveiling it at Vegas with drivers in tow. But cash flow hiccups have stalled the engine. Dale’s got his ear to the ground, picking up the same chatter we are. Vegas keeps surfacing and maybe a playoff spot next year or beyond. Homestead’s name is floating too, but Dale’s already dreaming bigger.
For Junior, when it comes to the finale, he wants a spectacle, and Las Vegas is the perfect place for it. F1 has been doing a grand event at their Las Vegas GP in the last two years and it has been a massive success. Even Kyle Busch visited the festivities last year. And if that’s not enough, just ask Denny Hamlin. Ahead of the Cup Series race at the track, Hamlin revealed he won $126,000 on a slot machine! “That’s the first time I played slots,” Hamlin said. “My buddy plays them all the time. He gave up his hot seat for me and it worked out well.” Even Neon Garage, the track’s unique way of letting fans interact with drivers, just adds to the race.
But more importantly, Vegas has been a staple for NASCAR fans in the last few years. The last race there was incredible especially with an underdog like Berry taking the win. It was an “emotional ride” for Earnhardt and Josh Berry, side by side, conquering Vegas. It wasn’t just a win; it was a comprehensive story. Earnhardt’s been mentoring Josh, pouring his heart into JR Motorsports, and that day at Vegas, they beat the odds together. Berry might have won the race for Wood Brothers, but it was Earnhardt who was the rock behind his win. “Over the course of the off-season, I found myself watching the 2014 Daytona 500, when Dale Jr. won. He went down to Turn 1 and kind of swung around and took his stuff off and waved around to the fans,” said Berry after his Junior-inspired celebration at Vegas.
It’s stories like this one that make the Las Vegas Motor Speedway one of the best places for the suggested playoffs gambit.
While Junior was all for a change to the format, he wasn’t happy with NASCAR when he chimed in on a hot debate.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. blasts NASCAR in Katherine Legge controversy
Katherine Legge made history when she made her debut at Phoenix. Years after Danica Patrick made her appearance in NASCAR’s top division, Legge followed in her footsteps to fulfill her dream of stock car racing with Live Fast Motorsports. But it wasn’t the perfect start. On Lap 215, Legge spun out, eventually taking Daniel Suarez out. The argument a lot of drivers and members of the NASCAR community made questioned the governing body giving approvals to drivers who may not have experience running at such a high level of racing consistently, even if that is someone like Legge, whose record speaks for itself. And this isn’t something new. Similar arguments came when Castroneves was announced.
Dale Jr. believes the problem was not with the approval process, but with the practice time given. “The conversation around practice, right? Is one that hasn’t gotten enough attention until probably the last 48 hours. There was Katherine Legge at Phoenix, stirred up a lot of conversation around the approval process for drivers in NASCAR. I don’t think there is a problem or a perfect solution for the approval process. I’m sure there’s things you can change. I don’t really give two s**ts about it to be honest with you. Somebody’s going to make a decision, somebody at NASCAR is going to say yes or no and that’s that.”
He continued, “What I believe better serves that conversation is by talking about how practice might have helped her and the team improve the car. … The teams aren’t saving money by not practicing. Let’s just say the teams are spending a million dollars less to not practicing, comparable to what they were doing in 2019.”
The post Dale Earnhardt Jr. Selfishly Makes His Pick for NASCAR’s Playoff Conundrum Amidst Widespread Confusion appeared first on EssentiallySports.
