Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. says NASCAR needs new approach to Talladega

By SceneDaily Staff

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. led five times for nine laps, finishing 11th, in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

LaDon George
NASCAR Scene

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Final crash wipes out Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon – and championship race?

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday that NASCAR Sprint Cup teams have gotten too smart and too fast for Talladega Superspeedway.

Earnhardt Jr. led five times for nine laps and finished 11th in the Amp Energy 500 for his best result since a ninth at Bristol in August. After the race, he talked about how Cup teams have “out-engineered” the 2.66-mile superspeedway.

“You know what I mean?” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We over-engineered, and the technology has sort of passed what they were trying to accomplish here when they built this place. But what we are doing now is OK, but I don't think it is the best solution.”

After a race that saw two cars flip in the final six laps, Earnhardt Jr. suggested that NASCAR is doing the opposite of what it should be doing to the cars at restrictor-plate tracks.

"If they have to slow us down and run around these tracks at slower speeds, they have to make a smaller motor, make us run a smaller motor, but be able to open it up so there is throttle response,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Then slow the cars down with a little more drag or something. Them old cars in the '80s didn't cut the wind like these things do.

“We have got them in [the] ground and everything else aero-wise to make it smooth and sleek, and now we are having to trim the motors back to make the cars slower. It is probably the opposite of what needs to be going on. Probably need to open the motors back up and slow the cars down with the air.”

Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday’s race was typical of Talladega events of late: Relatively calm racing until the closing laps.

“The race is pretty safe up until the end,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “You knew that. I don't think anybody wants to be out there and involved in what happens at the end: Dodging cars, seeing people flip upside down. Obviously there is something else that needs to be thought about. I am sure NASCAR will figure it out. They are pretty hard-headed over there, don't like to admit they [are] wrong sometimes."