NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr wants NASCAR to overhaul its All-Star Race to feature a multi-class event featuring all three NASCAR National Series.
It’s no secret that fans and industry members alike feel that the NASCAR All-Star Race has lost its luster over the past few years.
From moving venues to questionable format changes, and even calls to increase the payout to drivers, the cited issues plaguing the event are plentiful.
Ahead of this weekend’s All-Star Race at Dover Motor Speedway (an event that is drawing criticism for its location alone), fans and industry members are stepping up to the plate to offer their suggestions to “save” the All-Star Race.
Suggested ideas to rebuild the All-Star Race are plenty, and include common suggestions like scrapping the event or simply moving back to Charlotte Motor Speedway.
One idea making the rounds comes from NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr., who is once again campaigning for the race to open its doors to the all-stars of all three NASCAR National Series.
After previously vouching for this in the past, Earnhardt re-addressed the concept that first came to him while broadcasting the 24 Hours of Daytona, during the latest episode of The Dale Jr Download.
For his part, Earnhardt thought that this year’s race would be the perfect venue to debut the Multi-Class race concept, as Dover does not lend itself to the short racing style of the classic NASCAR All-Star Race.
“How are you going to go over there [Dover] and run an All-Star Race and make it spectacular? The way you do that is you have an All-Star weekend for all three series.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr
So, how does this work in Earnhardt’s mind?
Well, he has already thought that through, suggesting that stricter requirements to make the race would help grow the prestigious event. The field size would also have to increase to allow for a decent number of competitors to race in a multi-class race.
“You could tighten up the restrictions on how you get into the All-Star race, which would make the field size smaller, and somehow find a way to have. . . you could even have all three, Truck, O’Reilly, and Cup in the same event,” Earnhardt said. If you could start 42, 43, maybe a couple more, and you’d have, I don’t know, roughly, 12 cars from each series.”
Of course, this would create issues as the lower two National Series have less horsepower in their engines than the Cup Series, though Earnhardt says that this “moving chicane” would serve the event well, especially at a track like Dover.
Nonetheless, as many fans have pointed out, Earnhardt’s “must watch” idea has quite a few holes, as the sport would have to find a way to make lower series teams risking their equipment for a non-points race worth their while.
Still, while it doesn’t seem NASCAR or SMI are looking to make such a dramatic shift in the event, Earnhardt joked to his co-hosts, “Watch it happen in about three or four years. If not sooner.”
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