{"id":339870,"date":"2025-12-12T06:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T06:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339870\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T06:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T06:38:08","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-expresses-shock-at-nascar-feeling-threatened-by-srx-series-espn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/339870\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. expresses shock at NASCAR feeling threatened by SRX Series, ESPN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that he was \u201cshocked\u201d and \u201csurprised\u201d that NASCAR<\/a> had concerns about Superstar Racing Experience (SRX).\u00a0SRX, founded by\u00a0Tony Stewart\u00a0and\u00a0Ray Evernham, was a startup stock car racing circuit which debuted in June 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u00a0president\u00a0Steve O\u2019Donnell\u00a0testified<\/a> last Thursday that the sanctioning body had concerns about Superstar Racing Experience (SRX). Specifically, how much SRX was beginning to resemble NASCAR. Earnhardt, personally, didn\u2019t see the issue with SRX\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gotta be honest, this shocked me,\u201d Earnhardt said on Tuesday\u2019s Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201cI want to say that I\u2019m a big fan, and I think I\u2019m a good friend with Ray Evernham. When he started talking about SRX and what he wanted to do, in his mind, he wanted to re-create IROC. The initial idea of SRX as a series that would go into these local markets, and you would bring out these retired guys and some unique personalities, different forms of racing and offer up a car to the local hero. The original idea of SRX, in my mind, was a good idea. I will say, though, I wasn\u2019t interested in it, personally. Out of the gate, I just didn\u2019t have the bandwidth to get into it. I wasn\u2019t a fan; I didn\u2019t really watch too much of it. \u2026 No offense to anybody out there that was SRX fans or anybody that worked in the series\u2026 but I wasn\u2019t into it. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo hear that they [NASCAR] were even remotely the least bit threatened is so surprising to me because they\u2019re this giant that\u2019s NASCAR and SRX is just this little thing. They were like 12 cars just barely getting by financially. They\u2019re tearing up so much sh*t, they had no idea they were gonna tear up so much sh*t. In the end, they couldn\u2019t make the money work. SRX went away because it\u2019s expensive to operate and the viewership numbers didn\u2019t justify the TV contract and the TV contract couldn\u2019t afford the series, so it just financially didn\u2019t really work.\u201d<\/p>\n

23XI, FRM lawsuit: Steve O\u2019Donnell admits NASCAR felt threatened by SRX Series<\/p>\n

Before the start of the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports versus NASCAR antitrust lawsuit trial, a\u00a0series of text messages<\/a>\u00a0came to light in which NASCAR executives voiced displeasure of their drivers and team owners competing in the series. <\/p>\n

\u201cOh great, another owner racing in SRX,\u201d a person said in the thread, whose name was redacted on the document. O\u2019Donnell and NASCAR commissioner\u00a0Steve Phelps\u00a0replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is NASCAR,\u201d O\u2019Donnell replied. \u201cPure and simple. Enough. We need legal to take a shot at this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys are just plain stupid,\u201d Phelps responded. \u201cNeed to put a knife in this trash series.\u201d<\/p>\n

23XI and FRM lead attorney\u00a0Jeffrey Kessler\u00a0questioned O\u2019Donnell about his concerns of SRX. O\u2019Donnell testified, according to\u00a0Kelly Crandall\u00a0of\u00a0RACER<\/a>, \u201cI was concerned with what was happening on the racetrack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kessler further questioned O\u2019Donnell about his comment that he wanted NASCAR\u2019s legal to look at SRX. Included in the exhibits of text messages was a screenshot Phelps shared of a fan comment on an SRX social media page, Crandall reported. The fan said that SRX was beginning to resemble NASCAR, the same way\u00a0LIV Golf\u00a0resembled the\u00a0PGA Tour.<\/p>\n

Steve O\u2019Donnell: \u2018I thought this looked more and more like NASCAR\u2019<\/p>\n

Many NASCAR drivers competed in SRX until it folded. Those drivers included\u00a0Chase Elliott,\u00a0Kevin Harvick,\u00a0Kyle Busch,\u00a0Ryan Blaney\u00a0and 23XI co-owner\u00a0Denny Hamlin\u00a0among others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought this looked more and more like NASCAR,\u201d\u00a0O\u2019Donnell said.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donnell\u2019s comments surprised Earnhardt. He thought it was obvious why certain Cup drivers started competing in the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am surprised by the some of the comments I read from O\u2019Donnell and a couple people of, \u2018Man we gotta put an end to this or we gotta go take a look at this.\u2019 Why are we worried? I don\u2019t care [about the ratings], people were gonna be curious. \u2026 I\u2019m not alarmed by that. \u2026 I was really surprised by that,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cI never saw, no disrespect, but I never would\u2019ve worried or considered SRX a problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would\u2019ve looked at what they were doing\u2026 why do people like it and can we work together? It was interesting because it did morph. You had drivers like Denny, Chase, and Blaney, but Chase goes over there to race with his dad, have a little fun. Blaney with his dad. They were getting paid to go out there and do it for a little bit of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASCAR even blocked SRX from racing at a Speedway Motorsports track by invoking its exclusivity clause. O\u2019Donnell said this was done because \u201cwe were in a major negotiation\u201d for a new media rights deal and \u201cwe wanted to retain as much revenue as possible for the teams,\u201d per a report from\u00a0The Athletic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that he was \u201cshocked\u201d and \u201csurprised\u201d that NASCAR had concerns about Superstar Racing Experience…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-339870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}