Before the 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports v. NASCAR antitrust lawsuit was settled during the trial, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and sister/business partner Kelley Earnhardt-Miller took to their podcast studio to discuss some of their thoughts at the time.
One of those topics was the revelation that NASCAR felt threatened by a certain degree by the Superstar Racing Experience and even reacted to it by ‘locking down’ tracks with extensive sanctioning agreements.
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Its top executives even made clear how frustrated they felt by SRX both within documents uncovered by the discovery process but also during testimony during the trial itself.
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Earnhardt, talking on the Dale Jr. Download expressed surprise that NASCAR felt so strongly about SRX.
“I gotta be honest, this shocked me,” Earnhardt said on Tuesday’s Dale Jr. Download. “I want to say that I’m a big fan, and I think I’m 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’t interested in it, personally. Out of the gate, I just didn’t have the bandwidth to get into it. I wasn’t a fan; I didn’t really watch too much of it. … No offense to anybody out there that was SRX fans or anybody that worked in the series… but I wasn’t into it.
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“To hear that they were even remotely the least bit threatened is so surprising to me because they’re this giant that’s NASCAR and SRX is just this little thing. They were like 12 cars just barely getting by financially. They’re tearing up so much shit, they had no idea they were gonna tear up so much shit. In the end, they couldn’t make the money work. SRX went away because it’s expensive to operate and the viewership numbers didn’t justify the TV contract and the TV contract couldn’t afford the series, so it just financially didn’t really work.”
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During the trial, now NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell explained why he said he wanted the legal department from the Sanctioning Body to look at NASCAR. He said it looked more and more like NASCAR when Cup Series drivers and their sponsors started to compete in the mid-week summer short and dirt track series.
However, O’Donnell also testified that legal said there wasn’t nothing to take action against.
Regardless, Earnhardt just didn’t understand why this was even a topic of consideration.
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“I am surprised by the some of the comments I read from O’Donnell and a couple people of, ‘Man we gotta put an end to this or we gotta go take a look at this.’ Why are we worried? I don’t care [about the ratings], people were gonna be curious. … I’m not alarmed by that. … I was really surprised by that,” Earnhardt said. “I never saw, no disrespect, but I never would’ve worried or considered SRX a problem.
“I would’ve looked at what they were doing… 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.”
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Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray
Earnhardt directly was even pulled into the internal NASCAR debate as Phelps, O’Donnell and SVP of Strategy Scott Prime concluded the Sanctioning Body needed to schedule races at North Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray Stadium before SRX had a chance to do it with the retired superstar.
From the aforementioned June 2022 text message exchange between the three:
O’Donnell: Wait until (Dale) Jr. says he is running an event. Matter of time. They will go to North Wilkesboro with Jr. if we are not careful. We need to be the first back.
Prime: Agreed – North Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray next year with Jr and friends if we don’t make moves
O’Donnell: How about this for All Star – make it a combo – Bowman and Wilkes Fri/Sun
Prime: Sick! And flip it for 2024. We’ve got moves to make. Just need to sell them through. Should be a good working session Thursday
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Wilkesboro and Bowman Gray eventually were added to the Cup Series schedule in 2023 and 2025 respectively.
However, Earnhardt said the former is to the credit of Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith and the state of North Carolina’s Build Back Better fund contribution.
“Listen, there is a lot of stuff about NASCAR in all of this that I don’t know,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know everything about how they run things, and I certainly didn’t know how they felt about some things, and how these text messages have unveiled some things. But I’ll tell you what I do know, is that North Wilkesboro came back because of Marcus Smith … NASCAR, you know, they didn’t play any role. Now, they have to go, when Marcus comes up and says, ‘Man, I’ve got this track back together, I want to put it on the schedule.’ They’ve gotta go, ‘Okay, good.’
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“But, look, NASCAR never was going, ‘Guys, we gotta get Wilkesboro going.’ This isn’t a knock to them, you know, this isn’t a knock to them, they shouldn’t take this as an insult, but Wilkesboro is back because of everybody else. The government, our local government, and the town, a lot of volunteers. Fucking, 20 years of volunteers, people just like even keeping the grass mowed for 20 years. All of those reasons, the fact that they kept the track in somewhat reasonable shape, to even be considered to be brought back. Those people should be commended. You know, we can go on about this.”
Earnhardt-Miller also said her brother deserved credit for getting CARS Tour involved and his driving in a race that drew 20,000 fans even before NASCAR and SMI scheduled the All-Star Race.
He wouldn’t accept it, but it’s objectively true that his star power contributed to the success of an event dubbed ‘Race Track Revival.’
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