Dale Earnhardt Jr Proposes Grand Solution for NASCAR’s Worst Short Track Experience in 2024

Since the Sixth-Gen Cup Series car transitioned toward aerodynamic prowess, one track has been on the chopping block. Richmond Raceway has come under major fire from fans owing to lackluster racing. This only worsened with the Next-Gen car, as track position took priority over race craft.

With many questioning why it still has two dates, the Virginia short track is in dire need of improvements. But what can help restore Richmond Raceway to its glory days? According to Dale Earnhardt Jr, the solution lies in North Wilkesboro’s success.

It’s no secret that the Next-Gen car isn’t a fan of the short tracks. Apart from struggling to overtake owing to a lack of power, the track’s surfaces have also played a major role. With short tracks requiring higher downforce and grip compared to the longer speedways, the surface plays a major role in helping cars grip better. Unfortunately, the surface at a track like Richmond Raceway just doesn’t allow for three-wide racing.

As things stand, drivers usually stick to the bottom line at the Virginia short track. The surface does not generate enough grip for an attack from the middle or top lanes. That being said, North Wilkesboro seemed to solve this issue during their $18 million renovation under SMI. For the first time since Charlotte, NASCAR had gone back to their old ways of resurfacing the tracks.

“Imagine Richmond getting that treatment” – Dale Earnhardt Jr believes in NASCAR sticking to its roots

On the Dale Jr Download, the JR Motorsports veteran shared insight into this change. 50 years ago, the sport would ask tracks to source the material that bonds the tarmac locally. This meant that some tracks would use crushed rocks whilst some would use seashells as an aggregate to mix with the tar mixture. This helped tracks economically by reducing the cost of the tarmac. Which was achieved by mixing it with those cheaper rocks and seashells.

However, this practice revealed a major issue as the years passed. Earnhardt Jr elaborated, “When race cars would go around the racetrack, they would pull all of the tar and asphalt mixture out in between the rocks and granite and that’s what would make tracks abrasive. Now all those things are sticking up and they’re shards, right? In time, those tracks would break apart and seep and weep and have all kinds of issues, have cracks filled and all kinds of repairs” 

Owing to this reason, NASCAR decided to make some changes to newer projects. Going forward, rubber polymers were used as an aggregate instead of crushed rocks or sea shells. Although this seemed to solve the problem of degradation, it worked too well.

Junior added, “That’s what they ended up paving Charlotte with many many years ago, and Charlotte never aged.  So they’ve learned, because of Charlotte, we can’t do that again, we’re gonna change what we’re doing and we’re gonna go back to the old way…(…)…We’re gonna pave them and know that we might get fifteen years out of this, but we’ll have a better racing product.”

This is when the sport decided to go back to the locally sourced materials for resurfacing North Wilkesboro. According to Junior, this was the right call, as the track would naturally age better and get more challenging in years to come. Circling back to Richmond Raceway, the JR Motorsports veteran encouraged NASCAR to stick to their roots.

He concluded, “We talked about how to fix Richmond, and in my mind, it was to seal it or cover it from one end to another in resin. Whatever needed to be done to add more grip to chase middle and high lines. If they repaved it, this is how they should do it. And I promise you, man, I feel pretty confident that we’re gonna get a very similar-looking race to what we had in Wilkesboro in terms of cars on the bottom middle, and top.”

After looking at NASCAR’s revised approach with North Wilkesboro’s resurfacing, do you think Richmond Raceway can be great again too?