Dale Earnhardt Jr. gushes about current talent level in NASCAR

Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels he would be “humbled” if he competed in the NASCAR Cup Series this weekend in Chicago.

The NASCAR Hall of Famer cited his inactivity, and hyped up the talent level that exists in the sport today.

“I probably wouldn’t do that great,” Earnhardt Jr. said on the “Dan Patrick Show” Friday. “I say this often and it’s the only way I can really articulate it. Racing in the Xfinity, Truck level or the NASCAR Cup level — these guys do it every single week. They live it every day. They’re in the simulator every day preparing all week long, they’re in meetings every day. For somebody even like me with two decades of experience — to not have raced in a year or more — to hop in one of these cars, you would be humbled quickly.

“They’re in that cycle week after week after week. They’re doing it over and over and over, and they know how to get that car all the way to the limit of the grip of the tire. Right up to the moment where that tire is about to break traction. For me to hop in there after not being in the car for a year, to find that limit is really really hard, and I would rarely get up to that limit.”

Earnhardt Jr. added he plans to compete a couple times this season in the Xfinity Series. He, however, is keeping his expectations low.

“I don’t go in with high expectations,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “… It’s pretty humbling competing with those guys when they’re doing it every single week.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. describes the most important skill for a driver to have

Earnhardt Jr. recently discussed the most important skill for a driver to have in an interview with Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

“The single greatest skill for someone in racing to possess doesn’t even have a name,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s called the ‘It’ factor. It is the ability for you to become one with the car. You can feel and know exactly what kind of grip you’re dealing with as you go through a corner and you’re able to know exactly what all four tires can deliver. It allows you to be able to push the car right up to the very limit of what the tires can do.

“You go through a corner in a blink, but for the most amazing talents, that corner is a series of hundreds of processes of sensing grip, sensing the delta and the movement of the car and sensing loads in all four corners of the car and centrifugal forces and momentum. There’s all these little sensors popping off as a driver goes through the corner. For the greats, all of that stuff just feels natural and comes so easy. They can get the car to the very limit, corner after corner after corner.”