Dale Earnhardt Jr Proposes Revolutionary Twist To All-Star Event In a Bid To Restore Lost Glory

The NASCAR All-Star Race Week has been the headline event of the season every year. Drivers wait for the week, teams wait for the week and so do the fans. But the 2023 All-Star week is going to be special for very different reasons. The prestigious event heads to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the first time. Dale Earnhardt Jr is very excited to see the event come to his home state of North Carolina.

The All-Star race has over the years lost its sheen. Held usually prior to the 600 miler at Charlotte the race was being used by most teams as a test session. Its fixed $1 million prize wasn’t worth enough for teams to really attempt to win it. NASCAR tried and continues to try its own tweaks.

Dale Earnhardt Jr with his vast years of experience too has ways to make the week more entertaining. On the Dale Jr Download podcast, he said “Why don’t we on Saturday or Sunday have pit-crew competitions? We used to have Unocal Pit Crew Competition. The car pulls into the stall, you have a 4 tire stall, the car leaves, that’s it. There’s no lap on the track, the car trips a line entering the stall, it trips a line exiting the stall.”

“The pit stop is the moment. Every car, even the All-Star open cars through this process to celebrate and crown a true pit crew champion. This is their [pit crews] moment to say we are the best. And so what you do is you have that moment for your pit crews…” he suggested.

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The introduction of a pit crew championship is a great idea for many reasons, the biggest being – pit crews are an instrumental contribution to what goes on the track. Making them feel recognized and appreciated helps the sport.

How does Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Pit Crew Championship look?

The idea of a pit crew championship could possibly be borrowed from F1’s Constructors’ Championship but since the two sports are not identical, there could be some roadblocks for its implementation onto NASCAR.

Dale Earnhardt Jr’s explained his idea of what a Pit Crew Championship could be like. “Do whatever you need to in terms of monetary incentive or trophy that moves from team to team each year. What that also does is that sets the line up for your heat races and the line up for the Open.”

“All of the car that are eligible for the Open, go into the Open field, lined up by the way their pit crew pitted the car. So the pit crew has an even more of an impact on the performance of the race weekend. A great car could have a really terrible stop and start near the back!”  

“And that solves the problem of heat races in NASCAR. Everybody’s in the race, why have a heat race if nobody is gonna be cut, if there’s no elimination? Now you have a heat race where everybody is staged by how they are ordered by their pit stop speed. If a Kyle Larson or a Chase Elliot has a mid-pack pit stop he has to drive from the mid-pack in this heat race, he has to perform,” he reasoned.

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On his podcast, Dale Jr offers a number of great ideas to bring new energy and enthusiasm to the NASCAR All-Star Race week. The pit crew championship idea is just one of them but it really is a brilliant idea, that would reduce the gap between a great car and a not-so-great one. Leveling!