Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he was initially “upset” to hear the Nationwide Series was leaving Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly ORP/IRP) for Indianapolis Motor Speedway next season, but changed his tune when he thought about the big picture.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s NASCAR Schedule Wish List: More Short Tracks, Zero Road Courses
Earnhardt Jr. is a big fan of short track racing – and even said the ORP race is a better event – but said tracks must keep up with the times.
“I do think that short track racing is a lot of fun and I do think we should be doing more of it,” he said. “But the facility itself needs to be more along the lines of Bristol as far as seat capacity and things like that. ... It is easier to go to a place that can fit more people in there and it makes more sense to do it.
“Some of these tracks, in this economy especially, don’t have the opportunity to upgrade their racetracks and upgrade the seating capacities and stuff like that.”
ORP apparently fits into that category. But Earnhardt Jr. also said racing at the Brickyard will make it easier for his JR Motorsports team to sell sponsorship for the race, which was a challenge at ORP.
“Normally, we have to take less than minimal dollars to even cover the event for us,” he said. “So that will maybe give us the opportunity to maybe do that at least that weekend.”
While Earnhardt Jr. said he wished there were more short tracks on the NASCAR schedule, he had a different number in mind for the road courses.
Earnhardt Jr. said he “hates” road courses and wishes there would be zero road races on the schedule.
"I wish we never ran on them at all, to be honest with you," he said. "I mean, I'll be honest – they're fun as hell to watch and they are kind of fun to race in, especially Sonoma because it's getting more crazy and we're all kind of just crashing and running over each other and that's kind of fun to do.
“(But) I’ve never aspired to drive road courses, I don’t enjoy racing on road courses, and that isn’t what I wanted to be when I was a kid. ... My personal opinion – everybody’s got one – is these cars weren’t built for road racing. I never ever once when I was a kid thought, ‘I can’t wait to run them road courses!’ Never, never thought about that.”
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