{"id":125091,"date":"2025-08-07T01:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125091\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T01:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T01:42:10","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-i-dont-love-nascars-nextgen-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/125091\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr: I don’t love NASCAR’s NextGen car"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr: I don’t love NASCAR’s NextGen car<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to be nuanced but like everyone else in NASCAR, he is increasingly frustrated with the NextGen car, even if there are some things he ultimately does enjoy about it.<\/p>\n

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Similar to the commentary echoed by Kevin Harvick earlier in the week<\/a>, where the 2014 Cup Series champion said \u2018the car sucks,\u2019 Earnhardt was equally frustrated by another short track race at the highest level that stifled passing and became a fuel mileage strategy race.<\/p>\n

The race on Sunday at Iowa Speedway was representative of all the things that wears him out as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say that I don\u2019t love the Next Gen car, but it\u2019s here,\u201d Earnhardt said on the Tuesday episode of the Dale Jr. Download. \u201cI don\u2019t love the NextGen car\u2026. It\u2019s an IMSA car. It\u2019s a sports car. It\u2019s got a diffuser. It\u2019s got low-profile tires, it\u2019s got big rims and big brakes. It\u2019s a sports car. It\u2019s not a NASCAR stock car, but it\u2019s here. Everybody\u2019s invested.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s millions of dollars already way down the road and the car\u2019s here. It\u2019s on the track. It\u2019s not changing. It\u2019s not going anywhere\u2026 It doesn\u2019t do me any good to sit here and bitch about the fucking lack of tire fall off or the inability to pass. It\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a familiar story three and a half years into this platform. The car is too underpowered, especially considering it weighs more than its predecessor. The car has wider tires and a sealed underbody.<\/p>\n

The drag creates an extreme aero tight for a trailing car. NASCAR has tried a lot to fix it, aerodynamically, but nothing has really fundamentally changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see things during those races, like getting down into Turn 1, Erik Jones behind somebody, maybe Byron or somebody,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cAnd Byron shut the damn air off to the 43 car and fucking up the racetrack Erik Jones went, and I\u2019m like, \u2018God, I fucking hate this car.\u2019 But then there\u2019s moments where I enjoy watching the races, and I don\u2019t mind the car or the car puts on a great show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earnhardt especially doesn\u2019t understand the big brakes.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe used to race at Martinsville, and the brakes would fade and you\u2019d have to take care of your brakes, and the braking zone was long enough to be able to kind of charge into a corner and do things different to try to make passes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Not with this car because the big Sports Car brakes don\u2019t fade.<\/p>\n

Earnhardt wants to be nuanced and fair but this car is challenging that enthusiasm on tracks that are supposed to be their best produce \u2013 those a mile or less in size.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in a successful NASCAR, and I want NASCAR to succeed and be the best thing going,\u201d Earnhardt said.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, and historically, NASCAR has been at its best with cars with high horsepower, low downforce, minimal grip and fading brakes. But again, not this car.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe answers are all laying right there in our past,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cWe\u2019re worried about being modern and having a race car that all the kids are gonna love, you know, with cool diffusers and mag wheels.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr: I don’t love NASCAR’s NextGen car originally appeared on The Sporting News Dale Earnhardt Jr.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[2332,4727,1406,62,76970,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-125091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-car","9":"tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-sports-car","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114984946457004887","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}