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Dale Earnhardt Jr. said his timing was bad when he praised the racing at Martinsville Speedway during Sunday’s Xfinity 500, but he stood by the point he was making.
Earnhardt, the guest host on Denny Hamlin‘s Actions Detrimental podcast this week, said fans pushed back on his post after a long green-flag stretch.
The post
“Martinsville used to be one of the hardest races to watch with the Next Gen. It was follow the leader. No one could get within a car length of each other. Just horrid,” Earnhardt wrote on X during the race. “It’s greatly improved this season. Some of it is tire, some is car. Good direction to keep going in tho.”
https://x.com/DaleJr/status/2116997278061973706
Earnhardt: ‘People apparently didn’t seem to enjoy it’
“I sent out a social media post. I said, ‘Martinsville has been unwatchable. This is way better. Good direction. Whatever we’re doing, keep going. Tire, car, there’s been a lot of changes,’” Earnhardt said on the podcast. “And then as soon as I said that, we had like 250 laps straight at green flag run. People apparently didn’t seem to enjoy it.”
Earnhardt said that run was the longest green-flag stretch at Martinsville since September 1987. “I would have never guessed that,” he said.
He said the fan poll run by The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck was “below 50%. It is in the tank.”
Hamlin: ‘So few purists left’
Hamlin said fans did not like seeing one driver take control. William Byron led 362 of the 500 laps, swept both stages and beat Chase Elliott by 2.049 seconds, and only seven cars finished on the lead lap.
“They just don’t like it when someone gets control of the race and never relinquishes it,” Hamlin said. “We have to realize there’s so few purists left. You know what I mean? It’s not we don’t mind a good a** kicking here and there, right? And so it’s different, and everyone certainly wants, you know, their entertainment value for that, and usually lead changes and exchanging of positions is what makes them feel good about that. And when you have someone dominate and lead 362 laps.”
Credit to Goodyear
Earnhardt said the tire has made a real difference. “I think it’s been going in a really, really good direction. I know you and a lot of the drivers are pushed really hard to have Goodyear take those risks, and it’s paying off,” he told Hamlin.
Goodyear brought a softer left-side tire to Martinsville in 2025 that is built to wear more, and NASCAR’s short-track package this season took the energy-absorbing foam out of the bumpers. That bumper change also led to several cars having their noses caved in on Sunday, including Austin Cindric’s after Carson Hocevar brake-checked him.
Earnhardt, a co-owner of JR Motorsports, has been one of the loudest critics of how the Next Gen car races on short tracks since it debuted in 2022.
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