On the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. proposed a schedule change for the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He cited the series’ “embarrassing” racing at Martinsville Speedway as a reason to add North Wilkesboro Speedway to the schedule.
Since the track’s revival in the early 2020s, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been outspoken in his support of North Wilkesboro Speedway. Not only does his late model series, the CARS Tour, host two race weekends at the track a year, but he has also gone out of his way to vouch for the track getting an Xfinity Series date.
In his pursuit of this, Earnhardt, who, for the first time since 2018, has no one-off NASCAR races on his schedule, has gone as far as to claim that if the track got an Xfinity Series date, he would participate. The NASCAR Hall of Famer has also suggested schedule swaps, such as dropping the series race date at Circuit of the Americas to add a race at Wilkesboro.
Now, Earnhardt is suggesting that NASCAR cut at least one of the two dates held by the iconic Martinsville Speedway so that Wilkesboro can get its Xfinity Series date.
“I’d rather have an Xfinity race there [North Wilkesboro] than Martinsville. That s*** we’re doing at Martinsville is for the birds. I don’t love taking my cars over there and watching them get destroyed and watching our drivers destroy each other. So I’d love them to not go to Martinsville.” — Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Some NASCAR fans have shared a similar consensus about the Xfinity Series races at Martinsville. Most feel that this issue is not the track’s fault. Instead, the small confines of the facility, combined with the Xfinity Series drivers’ inexperience, often lead to an overload of aggression. In its short time on the schedule since 2000, all 11 races in the 21st century have called ten or more cautions.
When his take on the state of Xfinity Series racing at Martinsville received pushback from his co-hosts, Earnhardt stressed that he has “zero confidence” that the series can put on a good showing at the track.
“I have zero confidence that our Xfinity drivers could have a good entertaining race at Martinsville,” Earnhardt said. “Maybe there was one, and I’ve just forgotten it because of so much destruction has happened.”
However, he stresses that he loves Martinsville, pointing out that, in his opinion, the short stages at the track are hurting the product, leading Xfinity Series drivers to “drive like idiots.”
“I like Martinsville. The stage breaks are killing Martinsville because the runs are so short,” Earnhardt said. ”It makes people drive like idiots and there’s no comers and goers, there’s no tire fall off, there’s no struggle on the drive.”
For fans who watched the chaotic spring Xfinity Series race at the narrow 0.526-mile paperclip, this take is probably no surprise. Though the track had a long history with the Series in the 1980s and 1990s, from 1994 to 2019, Martinsville hosted one Xfinity Series race date: 2006.
However, after years of waiting, the track rejoined the schedule in 2020 and has hosted two annual Xfinity Series races since 2021.
These races have seen wild moments and late crashes, including this year’s spring race, in which one of Earnhardt’s drivers, Sammy Smith, attempted to wreck Taylor Gray for the win, wrecking both himself and JRM teammate Justin Allgaier in the process.
After this incident, on the Apr. 2 episode of the Dale Jr Download, Earnhardt reflected on this race, stating that Sammy Smith’s actions “gave JR Motorsports a black eye.”
Earnhardt’s pitch to switch the track out for a similar track like Wilkesboro, of course, raised questions, specifically from co-host T.J. Majors, who asked if the same issues would rear their head at the slightly larger 0.625-mile track in North Carolina. Majors pointed out the chaos on the final lap of this year’s Truck Series race as an example of the chaos that could ensue should the Xfinity cars head to Wilkes County.
But, in response, Earnhardt compared that finish, which saw Layne Riggs go after leader Corey Heim, to the Xfinity races at Martinsville, in which he claims, “we’ve got 12 f****ing cars on fire smoking, sitting on the front straightaway after every race, TJ.”
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