Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on debate surrounding NASCAR championship racetrack

The season is over, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship as an owner and he has thoughts. A lot of fans were not happy about the race that Phoenix put on for the Cup Series, at least.

While I think the racing was better this time around in the Cup Series, it was still lacking. When compared to Martinsville or Homestead the racing just doesn’t stack up.

The Xfinity Series race on the other hand was awesome. Justin Allgaier drove through the field a couple of times to win the championship. Dale Earnahrdt Jr. gave his thoughts on Phoenix on his podcast.

“Gluck did a poll, did Phoenix live up to the moment? 41.6% said, yes. Am I right? Not great,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download. “Look, Phoenix is going to Phoenix sometimes. I think the general opinion is, there are more exciting race tracks. Look, you can build 50 race tracks, they’re not all, you can try your hardest you know, to build 50 race tracks of different types, and there’s going to be a great one and there’s going to be one that’s not so good. And Phoenix kinda falls right in the middle somewhere. Sometimes you have some great events. We had a great event in the Xfinity Series the night before.”

So, what is the reason for the Xfinity race being so much better?

“Well, the Xfinity Series has put on some awesome races and there’s a lot of reasons why,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued. “The car, I think is just a more entertaining race car because of how difficult it is to drive. The drivers are not perfect. In the Cup Series, they’re good. They don’t mess up. I almost said the F-word. They don’t mess up. And in the Xfinity Series, we’re prone to mistakes. That causes opportunities. Like, you know, guys are going to spin out, guys in the back are going to get themselves in trouble. That’s going to create cautions, create some restarts, create drama. We don’t get all that in the Cup Series.

“So, there’s a bunch of reasons why. But again, in general, Phoenix is – look, the old track with the older surface, I like that better but it raced about the same. You would still get – it’s not the reconfiguration if anything the dogleg as foolish and silly as I thought it was when it came out, how they cut the course, which is just I don’t know, you can love it or hate it.”

When NASCAR fans watch a championship, they want it to produce championship racing. Those high-tension moments with multiple drivers in the battle for the lead. We just don’t get that from Phoenix Raceway when the Cup Series hits the track.