{"id":3679,"date":"2025-06-21T23:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T23:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/3679\/"},"modified":"2025-06-21T23:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-21T23:51:09","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-addresses-richard-pettys-nascar-complaints-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/3679\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. addresses Richard Petty’s NASCAR complaints – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr<\/a>. shared his thoughts regarding Richard Petty’s criticism of NASCAR’s<\/a> inclusion of road courses throughout the season.<\/p>\n

After motorsports star Shane Van Gisbergen dominated the Viva Mexico 205<\/a>, NASCAR’s inaugural points race in Mexico City<\/a>, Petty downplayed road courses and the sport’s current playoff system<\/a>. Despite the legend’s critique, NASCAR inched closer to introducing another street course,<\/a> this time located in San Diego<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With Petty’s comments making the rounds, Earnhardt<\/a> made his thoughts known on the matter. On a recent episode of the ‘Dale Jr. Download,<\/a>‘ the 50-year-old explained that he agreed with Petty but shared why it is important to have diverse courses in the sport.<\/p>\n

“I agree with Richard. Road course racing isn’t NASCAR…..There’s been road course racing in NASCAR since the ’50s,” he began, [h\/t The Tribune<\/a>]. “Being a road course racer wasn’t important. If you wanted to get to NASCAR, you raced a short track somewhere locally.<\/p>\n

“You ran stock cars, you ran late model stock, you ran the Busch Series or the Sportsman cars back in the ’80s. You raced full-bodied cars around ovals. That was the route.”<\/p>\n

Sign up to our NASCAR newsletter here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

He added that while Petty is not wrong with his thinking regarding road courses, the legend’s way of thinking was antiquated. “That was yesterday’s NASCAR, and that’s what Richard Petty is talking about. But we’re in a different time. Today’s NASCAR is all-encompassing. It is road courses, short tracks, superspeedway,” he added.<\/p>\n

In the end, Earnhardt reiterated his agreement with Petty while also noting that NASCAR drivers need to excel in a variety of tracks, not just ones they are familiar with. “I agree with Richard Petty. NASCAR stock car racing is predominantly an oval-based series,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“Always has been. We have removed some ovals, we’ve removed some tracks, added some road courses. I’m fine with that because I do like the idea that our drivers need to be great at all things. If you’re going to be a champion, you now have to be as good at a road course as you are at an oval.<\/p>\n

“Back when I started driving, you didn’t. You could f—— suck at the road course as long as you were good everywhere else.”<\/p>\n

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The 50-year-old’s comments come after Petty expressed his displeasure with NASCAR’s current playoff system along with how the sport is racing on tracks that it did not in years past. Replying to a fan’s question on social media<\/a>, the 87-year-old said that NASCAR has to make changes to its system.<\/p>\n

“The way they got this thing fixed, if you win and you’re in, that can’t be right,” Petty began. “From the standpoint that you got somebody, like I say, that’s 30th in the points that’s going to make the playoffs, hey man, what happened to the guy that’s 15th or 16th or 18th?<\/p>\n

“You know, been running good, finished good everywhere. You’re making a championship situation by winning a road course, which is not really a NASCAR to begin with. So from that standpoint, I think they’re going to have to jockey around and change some of this kind of stuff.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts regarding Richard Petty’s criticism of NASCAR’s inclusion of road courses throughout the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[4727,4423,1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-3679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","9":"tag-motorsport-section","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114724044133220939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679","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=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}