{"id":46551,"date":"2025-07-30T03:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46551\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T03:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T03:07:07","slug":"dale-jr-demands-nascar-to-revisit-1980s-glory-days-to-fix-next-gen-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/46551\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Jr Demands NASCAR to Revisit 1980s Glory Days to Fix Next Gen Car"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe cars just drive in a line, and they just run. And they run and they run. Looked like a pace lap every time.\u201d Richard Petty, one of NASCAR\u2019s top legends, said these words after the 2025 Talladega race. Although there were 67 lead changes among 23 drivers, the cost was too high. The chaotic race witnessed 4 cautions, including a multi-car wreck that inflicted heavyweight drivers. Such a lack of maneuverability did not exist in Petty\u2019s time, as Dale Earnhardt Jr recently said.<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u2019s Next-Gen car debuted in 2022, and for the past three years, it has been in the middle of a controversy. It never seems to end, with hot debates around horsepower, downforce, and dirty air. All of those can be solved if the sport looks back at a race 45 years ago, according to Dale Jr.<\/p>\n

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Dale Jr misses the flexibility<\/p>\n

The 26-time Cup Series race winner has immense experience. Winning twin Daytona 500s and dominating Talladega are part of Dale Jr\u2019s golden resume. But what he misses is a Coca-Cola 600 victory \u2013 he had a heartbreaking loss in the 2011 race after his car sputtered on the last lap. However, Dale Jr\u2019s attention is always on a 1980 rendition of the Coca-Cola 600. He was a child, and his father, the legendary Dale Earnhardt, was in the race. The iconic event lasted over seven hours thanks to rain delays and 14 cautions. Tire issues took out notable names like Earnhardt, Bobby Allison, and Cale Yarborough. But what Benny Parsons and Darrell Waltrip executed on the final laps still mesmerizes Dale Jr.<\/p>\n

In a recent \u2018Dale Jr Download\u2019 episode, the NASCAR veteran reflected on this race.<\/a> In the last 20 laps, Parsons and Waltrip exchanged the lead about 15 times, and even in the last lap, they did it two or three times. Dale Jr reflected on that flexibility, something which is missing in the Next-Gen era. \u201cBenny Parsons and Darrell Waltrip are battling for the lead, and they\u2019re by themselves\u2026Look at how these two cars can move around in proximity to each other all the way around the track, and how one gets the lead and the other gets it back\u2026These cars can get right in each other\u2019s door and are right on each other\u2019s bumper, and they all over each other in the corner.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In this age, if drivers mimic what Parsons and Waltrip did, that would be the perfect recipe for disaster. Just consider the wrecks in Atlanta last month or Carson Hocevar\u2019s antics against Ricky<\/a> Stenhouse Jr. Dale Jr lamented, \u201cYou don\u2019t see anybody get bad out of shape or suffer from any kind of like arrow push or loose or tight\u2026Why can\u2019t we, with everything we have technology-wise, take those two cars?\u201d So he urged NASCAR to take a leaf from the 1980 Coke 600: \u201cWe need to know what we need to know is all right? What\u2019s the overall downforce? What\u2019s the drag? Where is the lift? What\u2019s the front? \u2026If you watched those two cars in that 1980 600 in the last 20 laps, you can\u2019t tell me that you would not love to see that in a modern form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dale Earnhardt Jr is clearly invested in reforming NASCAR\u2019s Next-Gen troubles. Meanwhile, he knows that things are going well in his Xfinity Series team.<\/p>\n

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Tipping his hat to a teenager<\/p>\n

Well, Connor Zilisch just turned 19 this year, so he is barely an adult. What he performs on a weekly basis, however, probably rivals all the adults in the NASCAR garage. The JR Motorsports prodigy is all over the Xfinity Series headlines. Zilisch clinched his third back-to-back victory in Indianapolis last weekend. He warded off hard charges from Taylor Gray and Sam Mayer in the last lap, winning by a margin of 0.339 seconds. In doing so, Zilisch clinched the fifth victory of the season and the sixth of his career. What is more, he also delivered JRM its 100th team victory, eliciting a jaw-dropping salute from Dale Jr<\/a>. \u201cHe has the potential to do incredible, incredible Hall of Fame worthy things.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Athletic\u2019s Jordan Bianchi also praised Connor Zilisch<\/a> recently. He said, \u201cHe is the young guy who is coming in and showing it, and it\u2019s the maturity and the poise \u2026. He\u2019s really smart. He\u2019s really patient. He\u2019s about putting himself in a position to be there at the end and then makes the moves and capitalizes. That, to me, is a guy whose race craft supersedes his age. He\u2019s not racing like a 19-year-old.\u201d Jeff Gluck chimed with this opinion as well, dazzled by Zilisch. \u201cHe\u2019s just so mature. It\u2019s crazy. When you listen to him talk and his mental approach \u2026 he must have had great parenting growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dale Jr has things to be proud of in the Xfinity Series. But in the Cup Series, he has qualms about NASCAR\u2019s Next Gen car.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe cars just drive in a line, and they just run. And they run and they run. Looked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[425,99],"class_list":["post-46551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}