‘Chicago course didn’t make me more excited,’ NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr is not impressed with the newly proposed street race

‘Chicago course didn’t make me more excited,’ NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr is not impressed with the newly proposed street race

Dale Earnhardt Jr

NASCAR has been going through a lot of sweeping changes in its efforts to make its races more diverse and appealing to more motorsports fans. But all these radical changes such as introducing new races come at the cost of a well-established race being scraped from the schedule, which happened to the Chicagoland Speedway.

NASCAR has a well-established fanbase in the West Coast and Chicago is a prime market in that region but back in 2020, the sport decided to scrap the race siting covid-19 concerns, ending its two-year presence there. Now reports have emerged that NASCAR is planning to get back to the Chicago market but in an entirely different way.  

In its bid to diversify the races NASCAR is planning to set up a street course in Chicago as soon as 2023 which prompted a mixed reaction from the fans. Now NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr has come out expressing his concerns over the proposal in his podcast Dale Jr. Download.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr was acknowledged that he isn’t a fan of street racing as he doesn’t see the street circuits being better or different from other courses. The Hall of Famer went on to say he thought the courses give drivers a lot to work with it doesn’t excite him much as he pointed out his lies thrilling experience in iRacing, where he raced in virtual Chicago Street circuit. He went on to say that though real-world racing in Chicago may be different it isn’t exciting enough for him.

“I guess I need to ask, what’s fun about watching cars racing around a street course? I can’t answer that question for me. I can’t sit here and go, ‘Man, I wish we had a street course,’ because I don’t know why street courses are better or different,” Dale Earnhardt Jr said.

“… Watching the driver try to figure out how to navigate them, it’s fun because you see the drivers are struggling. It’s frustrating to sort of workaround there. But that’s with Indy Lights and IndyCars,” Dale Earnhardt Jr added.

“I will say in my experience in the virtual world on iRacing with the Chicago course didn’t make me more excited. I didn’t think that our cars went around there very well. But that’s the virtual world, and the real world is going to be a little different. So, I’m still not eager for it,” Dale Earnhardt Jr explained.

Also read: Penske President Tim Cindric cautions NASCAR of more ‘teething issues,’ with Next-Gen car