“Not Gonna Win Any Awards” – Despite Hendrick Motorsports Taking the Cake, Dale Earnhardt Jr Disappointed by ‘Shortest’ Watkins Glen Outing

Picture this: 40 cars rev their engines at the start-finish line and run all the laps of the race at full throttle. No cautions, no contact, no on-track squabbles. Everything is done and dusted; the winner takes home his trophy. Is something not missing from the picture here? Why are the cars not spinning off the track? Where are the damaged fist-fights? After all, NASCAR is an entertainment sport and when you take away the entertainment out of it, what is the spectacle left with?

Last Sunday’s Go Bowling at The Glen was one such peaceful race that witnessed just one caution. And that too was because Chase Elliott of Hendrick Motorsports ran out of fuel in lap 55. For Dale Earnhardt Jr, this peace is a hindrance to the fundamental nuance of stock car racing.

Dale Earnhardt evaluates the road course race at Watkins Glen

With just one race remaining till the 2023 season of Cup Series playoffs, the competition is probably going to be fierce at Daytona. However, the last one at the Glen did not uphold the dare-devilish aspect of the sport. Martin Truex Jr, known for his clean racing style since he refrained from nudging leader Michael McDowell at Michigan, would be happy. But Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not.

Going into Watkins Glen, William Byron won his fifth win of the season. Dale Earnhardt Jr offered his flowers to the number 24 driver of his ex-team. In his podcast, he praised the Charlotte, North Carolina native and admitted, “He was fast in practice, once he got the lead, nobody could run him down. Denny and those guys were just hanging around second half to three seconds back . Byron was just lights out.”

However, 15 minutes into the episode of The Dale Jr Download, Junior expressed his thoughts about the penultimate seasonal race. The two-time Xfinity Series champion said, “Very fast race. An hour and fifty-eight minutes – shortest cup race. In the modern era, 90 laps is a lot of laps though. But we had no stage cautions. Those are 15 minutes of peace. We had one yellow for four laps.”

But he believes that since the 1970s, Watkins Glen has lost its luster. Earlier, NASCAR road races used to be longer and more exciting. Disappointment oozed from Dale Earnhardt Jr’s voice when he said, “This race is not gonna win any awards.”

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Co-host Mike Davis consoled his friend, saying, “Thankfully for this race, there were enough other compelling storylines to kind of keep you interested.”

Back in 2017, Earnhardt Jr had revealed his strategy to fare well on the road course of Watkins Glen

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NASCAR teams test their cars on the tracks before every race to adjust their aero, heights, and downforce. This ensures that there are no unpredicted difficulties for the car and the driver on race day. However, the then Hendrick Motorsports driver did not approve of this look-before-you-leap approach.

In an interview, he revealed why he had started running better at road courses with few days to go from the Cup Series race in August 2017. He stated that they would go to the road courses and devote as many as two days to figure out how to become great at it. But Dale Earnhardt Jr was not having any of that.

He said, “We could quit test, and that is why we started running better cause we stopped trying so hard.”

“Finally I told (Steve) Letarte, let’s just quit testing because it ain’t getting us anywhere but war out,” he added.

Veni-Vidi-Vici. This is what Dale Earnhardt Jr’s approach to NASCAR racing looks like. Hence, the race at Watkins Glen was the complete opposite of his mantra. Hopefully, he will get to see something more spectacular at Daytona 500. And with its track record of horrible crashes, we believe that it might just be so.

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