Dale Earnhardt Jr. Highlights the Downgrade of “The Big Three” That’s Lost NASCAR Its Fanbase

“They got everything together,” Ryan Newman, who drove the No. 31 Chevy, said back in 2018. “They’ve got great downforce, horsepower, tires. Drivers are doing their job and collectively, their organizations are strong.” There was a time when NASCAR was dominated by the “Big 3” – Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, and Martin Truex Jr.

Their peak could be judged in 2015 when all these veterans reached the Championship 4 at Homestead-Miami, joining the likes of Jeff Gordon to win that prestigious Championship trophy.

But that time feels way ancient when there was no such thing called the “Next-Gen” car on the horizon. Dale Earnhardt Jr would remember that time vividly as it was just the race he won before the race at Miami. But now times have changed, and so is the definition of the Big 3, at least that’s what Junior feels.

Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing, and Team Penske are the teams that every new up-and-coming driver looks to race for. They’re considered the pinnacle of anyone’s career now and have become the. On his podcast, the Dale Earnhardt Jr Download podcast, he ranted, “It used to be drivers. Just a couple years ago, it was Truex, Kyle Busch, and Harvick winning like 80% of the races one year. It was ridiculous. Yeah. So, yeah, we’re nowhere near that. And you still have, you know, you still have the potential for, I mean, you still have potential for guys, new guys.” 

When we look at the data between 2017 and 2019, what Dale Jr. says makes a lot of sense. In 2017, Harvick, Busch, and Truex had 15 wins between themselves. In 2018, that number grew to 20. And in 2019, the pattern continued. The big three had 16 wins between themselves. Compared to last season, only one driver had more than five wins, and that was Larson.

He went on further, “There’s a point race yesterday or sunday where there’s a ton of dudes in the top 10 that hadn’t won races or were about to have some seriously respectable results and you see Spire with Hocevar and those guys kind of creeping up into the top 10 so I think that if it was just like if the top 10 look the same every week and the guys running first and second third yeah then you’d have an argument.” 

It’s not just Hocevar who’s making headway into the top 10. Going back to the Advent Health 400, names that would usually be unfamiliar in the top 10 were starting to emerge. Josh Berry in sixth place, Ryan Preece in seventh, and John Hunter Nemechek in tenth. These results prove what Junior is trying to explain. Newer drivers now have the chance to win and put themselves on the map. Berry proved it when he won the Pennzoil 400. Not just in the 2025 Cup Series, but if we go a year down memory lane, Burton winning at Daytona showed how NASCAR’s quest for parity has leveled out the playing field.

Dynamics on the field have changed so much that fans can’t seem to find any prominent figure that they could cheer for, like the time they used to do for legends like Dale “Intimidator” Earnhardt or Richard “The King” Petty. But with the advent of the Next-Gen car, every racer looks the same, and it has become really difficult to differentiate the racers from each other. And that’s what has given so much more power to the racing teams themselves and increased their role in the ultimate dominance of drivers on the race field.

Even Harvick things the Next-Gen car has contributed to this change. His era of dominance came in NASCAR’s Gen-6 era. Last year, he went on to say, “I think you mentioned the old car. And everything that you could do in the old car, it was like clockwork, man. Once you had it, you had it. You knew what you’re looking for, you knew the feel which you were looking for. This car, you chase the feel. I mean, as you saw this weekend, you’re constantly on edge and it’s not always fun to drive because of how hard it is to drive… It’s not the same feel, it’s not the same stuff. You can’t just; every week is a new week with the evolution of the car. And the changing of the rules and the changing of the tires.” 

For now, let’s take a look at what Harvick’s old rival and a member of the big three fared in Kansas last weekend.

Kyle Busch’s woes have forced his team to take extreme measures

Kyle Busch would want to erase the memory of the Sunday Kansas race completely from his brain. The biggest issue that spiked Rowdy’s anger was the car. “Unf—— believable,” Busch said, “This car sucks so bad. Thank you, NASCAR.”“Unf—— believable,” Busch added.

He was running mid-pack when contact between Josh Berry and Noah Gragson sent his No. 8 Chevrolet into the inside grass down the backstretch. Ross Chastain was running the top, things got tight between the four cars, and it was Busch on the inside who paid the price. “They’re all f—– clowns. Every single one of ’em,” #8 driver said.

“They have a disconnect on the box for my radio button,” Busch said on Actions Detrimental. “They’ll only let me talk when they know it’s pertinent.” Hamlin got the answer to his curiosity about why Kyle Busch doesn’t feel like his old self. Rowdy is currently going through one of the worst patches in his career with over 60 winless races on the trot. And these rants on the radio feel like layers of his newfound calmer demeanor peeling away and bringing out the hidden Rowdy figure from the past.

Fans not only want the #8 car in victory lane but also wants their beloved veteran to relive that same dominance that brought his name in the same breath as other legends. With the All-Star race coming everyone is rooting for Kyle Busch to turn over a new leaf in his heroic chapter.