Dale Earnhardt Jr Wonders if He’s “An Old Timer” or “A Boomer” for His Take on NASCAR’s Current State of Decentralisation

19 years is a long time. Dale Earnhardt Jr has seen NASCAR go through a multitude of changes over his 19 years in the sport. His time on the tracks, therefore, adds a lot of weight to his opinion when he says that NASCAR these days isn’t the ‘same’ anymore.

Speaking to Brian France, former CEO of NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr said “When you’re watching NASCAR today so I always have this conversation come up when there’s a lot of collaboration, there’s the RTA now where the teams have now formed a sort of alliance. The drivers are now trying to show, be a little bit more of a one single voice, and have a seat at the table.” 

Dale Jr then compared it with how it was under Brian’s father, Bill France Jr’s time as the CEO. “Obviously we know that the networks have gained a ton of influence over the last couple of decades. They spend the most money in the sport which is rightfully for them to have that influence but even when your dad was at the helm, I really admired the way he ran the sport.” 

“And there were moments when he literally would come to the ground forward and in front of everyone say “We’re doing it this way and that’s the end of the conversation”. I wonder sometimes if I’m just an old-timer or you know or a boomer, that doesn’t see really the good in where we are today.”

“But sometimes I miss that, I miss their being the one guy at the top that will say this is the end of the conversation, this is the decision we’re making today and we’re moving forward. And nobody had a word to say otherwise.”

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Dale Jr makes an interesting point. Having an authoritative figure at the top, who doesn’t cross the line into being an authoritarian, is sometimes very helpful. Decisions can be taken with speed, instead of being pondered over for a long time.

Is such a leader still possible in NASCAR today?

19 years is a long time to gather a lot of experience. At the same time, it is a very long time wherein lots of ideas and personalities change. The kind of leader Dale Jr prefers might not be acceptable today. Here’s why…

Dale Jr asked, “How much of that is really necessary today? How do you feel that about how it’s sort of changed? We are really now more of a committee, more of a conversation around things. Things take a lot longer to sort of get worked out and get resolved. Everything moves much slower. I miss it being one guy going this is the set of rules you got today, play by ‘em.”

Brian explained, “A lot of that, that was an era where you could have a John Wayne – my dad. And he could pull that off. The sport benefited from that. I don’t know that if you go back in any sports history, you’ll find people like that in the sport, that took them from one place to another.”

“In today’s system that person really couldn’t exist even if you wanted them to. There’s too many stakeholders to have a very loud voice. Believe me, when I was coming through, I would’ve loved to have that kind of a platform.”

“Once you bring in people that are vested in there with you. And their livelihoods are at stake. And these super teams get built out, and these sprawling complexes and network TV spending billions of dollars. Then you can’t just say “Well the wind blew today and I’m going this way,”  the former CEO explained.

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Brian France explains the answer very eloquently. He explains why consensus in today’s day and age is very important given the varied interests involved. Thus tough decisions are still going to be made, but there will remain checks and balances.