Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to see NASCAR make a big change to its overtime rules, but doesn’t know how fans would feel about it. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt said NASCAR should eliminate overtime in the Xfinity and Truck Series.
“If I was in charge, I would not have overtime finishes in Xfinity or Truck,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “I don’t think it serves any real purpose other than presenting more opportunities to crash and tear up more stuff.
“The race cars and trucks, those are $150,000 to $250,000 vehicles. I think we lose sight of that. …No one really thinks anymore of like, ‘Damn, that was a couple million dollars worth of equipment got destroyed.’ I think that for the long-term good, I would get rid of overtime finishes in Truck and Xfinity. Sometimes races just end under caution. That’s a hard thing for a lot of fans to grasp. They’ve paid to come see the race; they want to see it. They feel entitled or deserving of seeing a race across the line. I understand that.”
When it comes to the Cup Series, Earnhardt said, “I think we can have that in the Cup Series because those drivers make less mistakes, they’re more elite, they are not going to, in most cases, destroy themselves or the whole field racing in overtime finishes.” Earnhardt made his comments after NASCAR fans saw the Truck Series race at Watkins Glen go to triple overtime. The race ended within a couple of minutes when NASCAR had pre-determined to call it because of darkness.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. has more thoughts on NASCAR overtime
NASCAR overtime was introduced in 2004, which is the same year it introduced the playoffs in the Cup Series. In the current overtime format, drivers compete in two laps and an unlimited number of attempts to get the final lap under green. Once the white flag is waved, the next flag wins the race.
This isn’t the first time Earnhardt sounded off on NASCAR’s overtime rules. In June, the NASCAR Hall of Famer talked about how NASCAR should adjust the overtime rules to make is similar to other sports.
“Should we apply a more specific, similar framework to NASCAR races? Should we only have an overtime attempt if the lead was contested?” Earnhardt asked on Dale Jr. Download. “We could all sit down, have a long conversation around what a contested lead is. Maybe we all decide that, if the caution came out, if the lead was within one second, that would draw an overtime, because we would then say, ‘Well, it was a contested lead. There was a chance for second to do something in the final lap.’”
