As a kid, Bristol Motor Speedway was one of Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s favorite playgrounds.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.: There’s Nothing Wrong With Bristol Itself, It’s NASCAR’s New Car
He and his buddies would run around the Bristol infield, surrounded by those towering grandstands, and stand on top of a van in Turn 1 or 2 to watch the NASCAR races.
“That was our favorite place to go because you could get from one end of the track to the other in no time,” he said. “We’d run around and beg people to let us wax the race cars or just do anything we could. I did that for years and years as a little kid.”
Earnhardt Jr. is hoping Bristol will be his playground once again on Saturday night – but this time on the racetrack itself, where he needs a good run to boost his Chase for the Sprint Cup hopes.
That would obviously please many of the Bristol fans, some of whom have expressed their displeasure for the “new” Bristol. Ever since the track was reconfigured in 2007 to allow multiple grooves of racing, fans have felt Bristol wasn’t the rough-and-tumble track it once was.
But Earnhardt Jr. said it’s not the track reconfiguration that has changed the racing at the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile” – it’s NASCAR’s COT car.
“I think the race track is awesome and I think if you put the old car out there, you would see some bad-ass races,” he said. “The track is perfect and fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s as good or better than it ever was.
“We have the COT now and it’s tough with the splitters to drive these things around the short tracks. Especially a banked place like Bristol. They don’t really want to turn too well when they get on the splitters.”
Earnhardt Jr. said much of the perception about a race these days also has to do with which tire Goodyear chooses.
“It all comes down to choosing the correct tire that allows us to race around the racetrack,” he said. “Because the tire, as Goodyear will probably tell you, is one of the most important components to being able to produce and provide good racing.”
So is Earnhardt Jr. happy with the tire Goodyear is bringing to the track this time? Goodyear will use the same tire it gave the drivers for last year’s Bristol night race.
“It’s fine,” he said. “That’ll be fine, because it seemed to be a good tire in the race.”
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