Dale Earnhardt Jr Paves the Way for “Miatas” As NASCAR Expansion Gets Underway

Since the beginning of this season, NASCAR has been making significant efforts to extend its outreach. From forming a melange with the V8 Supercars and now broadening its scope to including the Mazda MX-5, better known as Mazda Miata, in a series-oriented test run at Martinsville Speedway, the community is improvising quite a bit.

Brainchild of BFGoodrich Tires, the Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup, ran a two-day long test drive with four cars and eight drivers on the half-mile track. Among others, NASCAR Hall of Famers like Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr agreed to test the feasibility of these lightweight two-seater passenger cars racing in NASCAR’s ovals.

Dale Earnhardt Jr reveals the biggest challenge with the Japanese Roadster

Prior to this week, the IMSA-sanctioned series had unleashed its full fury just on road courses. However, Martinsville just experienced its first open-top car run since the NASCAR Convertible Series had raced there back in 1959. With a happy collaboration between NASCAR, IMSA, Flis Performance, and the Mazda MX-5 Cup, the MX-5 series is receiving bundles of optimistic feedback from veteran NASCAR drivers, including Junior.

On one hand, Dale Earnhardt Jr revealed his familiarity with the steering of the Mazda Miata but on the other, sent a caution to the drivers out there who might want to try their hands behind the wheel of these sleekly designed cars.

In his podcast, Dale Junior explained, “It has a lot of power steering and so the steering was real light but I didn’t have a problem with that because I run the steering wheel very similar in iRacing and so it felt comfortable to me right away.”

However, the real challenge is in the downshifting and, more significantly, in the braking. The upshifts are easy, as Dale Earnhardt Jr admitted, and the downshift auto blips for the driver. “You don’t have to lift up the gas pipe,” he added.

But while driving around a corner, this becomes a massive challenge. Trying to get around a turn, braking while downshifting the gear, and going back to full throttle will perhaps be a hard nut to crack for most drivers. But that’s not the toughest one either.

Owing to the highly sensitive brake pedals, a mere touch with even the fingers brings the cars to an abrupt halt. So drivers must pay extra attention to how hard they are pressing the brakes. The 15-time most popular NASCAR Speedster warned, “You gotta be very careful not to over-brake and you wanna slow down with a little bit of brake but it’s very, very light.”

“So trying to adapt to that was the toughest,” he concluded. However, while talking about the cars, he exclaimed, “The cars are a blast!”

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Did you know that an online gaming platform aided the two-time Xfinity Series champion in handling the Miata with considerable ease?

This is where the two worlds come together

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In the fast-paced environment of Esports, online gaming plays a major role in the domain of entertainment. And when the discussion about online racing begins, iRacing cannot be too far away.

iRacing provides gamers with a virtual environment that lets them connect closely with the simulator of a NASCAR or an F1 car. The biggest advantage of iRacing is you can do anything and everything. You can drive a stock car on a Formula 1 track and more. Basically, there are numerous combinations that you can form.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a big fan of iRacing. He clearly stated in his podcast, “I run the steering wheel very similar in iRacing and so it felt comfortable to me right away.”

While talking to a reporter after the two-day long test drive, Junior expressed why he is such a simp for iRacing. “The great thing about iRacing is that you can run any combination; track, car…some of the most ridiculous things,” he said, “Sometimes, you stumble on to these things that work and that go really well together.”

For him, the MX-5 Series running on Martinsville Speedway is one such combination out of the world of iRacing that would work really well.

According to the JR Motorsports owner, the powers behind this endeavor, IMSA and NASCAR are moving in a good direction. He said, “This is something to explore. I think that it would be a nice compliment to the Series. It’d be a good challenge for the entire Series drivers, mechanics trying to find a balance and get the cars comfortable.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reckoned that the stock car fans will thoroughly enjoy this Series. “You got two different words coming together, and that’s great!” he smiled.

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