In recent years, fuel saving has become the name of the game in NASCAR superspeedway races.
At Daytona and Talladega, the huge packs that bring entire fields together still exist. There’s often three and even four-wide racing present, and at the very least, the pack will almost always be two abreast.
But the nature of NASCAR’s Next-Gen car has made it more difficult to pass on superspeedways. Thus, teams are saving fuel in an attempt to spend less time on pit road and gain spots via strategy.
Unfortunately, that’s led to stale superspeedway racing where, while the cars might be three-wide, drivers are barely pushing and aren’t running anywhere near full throttle.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants superspeedway racing to change
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, discussed the current state of superspeedway racing in a media briefing.
“John [Patalak] and I will sit there in the tower, watching the race and listening to the broadcast and scanners, and if we turn that off, they’re five and six wide, and [fans] don’t know how fast they’re going… they’re all standing up and cheering,” Sawyer said, per Matt Weaver of Motorsport.com.
Sawyer said that he doesn’t think NASCAR “can actually fix it” and noted that changes to the superspeedway package were relatively low on NASCAR’s priority list.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won two Daytona 500s and a total of 10 races at Daytona and Talladega, called out the current superspeedway package on Tuesday’s episode of the “Dale Jr. Download.”
“I do not like that they go out there and run half throttle and two seconds off the pace,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I don’t like it. So, Elton, we don’t like it. To say, ‘Well, if we don’t talk about it, is it really a problem if the casual fan doesn’t realize what’s going on then we shouldn’t consider it an issue?’ I don’t love that he said that.”
Whether Earnhardt Jr. likes it or not, fuel saving is likely to be prevalent in Sunday’s Daytona 500.