Denny Hamlin Says Dale Earnhardt Wouldn’t Be Successful At Today’s Superspeedway Racing

That’s a bold statement…

We’re less than a week away from the start of the NASCAR Cup Series season with the Daytona 500, and naturally there have been plenty of tributes to Dale Earnhardt ahead of the sport’s biggest race.

The Intimidator was one of the greatest superspeedway racers to ever hit the track. Back then, the cars used restrictor plates at tracks over 2 miles long (so Daytona and Talladega) in order to restrict the air intake of an engine and slow the cars down. NASCAR started using the restrictor plates in 1988 as a safety measure after the cars became too fast – and Dale Earnhardt earned the nickname “Mr. Restrictor Plate” for his dominance on these restrictor plate tracks.

Throughout his Hall of Fame career, Earnhardt won 34 races at Daytona International Speedway – including, most famously, the 1998 Daytona 500, his only win in NASCAR’s biggest race. But he also won 10 times at Talladega, making Earnhardt the undisputed king of superspeedways. In fact, Earnhardt was so good at these big tracks that it was always said that he could “see the air” moving around the cars, knowing exactly where to go to get the best aerodynamic advantage and move (or stay) up front.

Of course as fate would have it, Earnhardt lost his life at one of these superspeedways back in 2001, when he crashed during the final turn of the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. And since then, a lot’s changed in NASCAR.

Earnhardt’s death brought about new safety innovations to prevent another tragedy from happening, and to NASCAR’s massive credit, the sport hasn’t had a death on track since Earnhardt passed away. And the cars are also a lot different from those that Earnhardt drove back when he was dominating superspeedways.

Not too long ago, a good team was always able to find ways to work within the rules (or break them in a way that they didn’t get caught) to give their driver an advantage on the track. But with the introduction of the Next Gen car back in 2022, most of the parts used on the cars today are made by NASCAR-approved suppliers and sent directly to the teams. Think a model car that you order from Walmart and just put together when you get it home.

Technology in the cars has come a long way too, and NASCAR now uses optical scanning to ensure that the cars are in compliance.

But another thing that’s changed is how the teams – and manufacturers – operate.

There are only three car manufacturers in NASCAR: Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota. And the manufacturers pour massive amounts of money in the sport, so they expect their drivers to help out other drivers for the same manufacturer – whether they’re on the same team or not.

That means you’ll often see the Fords of RFK Racing and Team Penske working together to draft with each other and push each other towards the front, despite the fact that they’re competitors on the track and in the race shop. You’ll see the Chevys of Hendrick Motorsports and Trackhouse Racing lining up together on restarts to avoid having a Ford or Toyota in the middle of them. And if a Toyota driver from 23XI Racing has a decision to make at the end of the race, they’re expected to push their fellow Toyota driver to the win instead of going with a Ford or a Chevy – even if that Toyota is a Joe Gibbs Racing car and not even their teammate.

These manufacturers orders have received a lot of scrutiny in years past, but that’s just the way it is right now with these massive companies pouring big money into the sport every week.

And Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin says that because so much has changed, Earnhardt wouldn’t be able to have the same dominance at superspeedways today that he had during his career.

Hamlin made the controversial comments during an episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, when he was complaining about the state of superspeedway racing today:

“We absolutely know that manufacturers play a role in who you draft with, who you don’t. Teams play a role in who you draft with, you don’t.

I hate all of it, for the record. I’d rather use anybody and everybody to my advantage.

Dale Jr. and Dale Earnhardt would have never survived in today’s superspeedway racing. A, they wouldn’t have been as successful because of how superspeedway racing happens today. But then to be told who you can and can’t draft with? It’s nonsense. But it’s the world we live in.”

@dirtymomedia_

Would Dale Earnhardt be able to win with today’s superspeedway package?

♬ original sound – Dirty Mo Media

Now, I see what he’s trying to say. But do you really think Earnhardt would have listened to ANYBODY who told him that he couldn’t draft with another car because they were a different manufacturer?

The irony in all this is that when Earnhardt was killed, he was in 3rd place and many thought he was blocking for the two cars that he owned that were leading the race, driven by Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. But if that were Jeff Gordon in the lead, do you think Earnhardt would have been trying to block for him instead of going for the win himself? Hell no – and it wouldn’t have mattered what Chevrolet, his car owner Richard Childress, or anybody else told him to do.

You don’t go from 18th to the win at Talladega in 6 laps by only working with Chevrolets.

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