Lately, there’s been an ongoing conversation inside and outside NASCAR circles in which Ross Chastain is being talked about as perhaps the next Dale Earnhardt. This was also the point that Dale Jr. brought up by claiming that the sport should capitalize on marketing Chastain in the way they did with his father.

But if former driver Kenny Wallace is to be believed, Chastain and Earnhardt can’t even be in the same sentence, let alone the #1 driver becoming like the #3 driver.

Ross Chastain isn’t even remotely close to being Dale Earnhardt as per Kenny Wallace

Wallace argued that those who are talking about Chastain reminding them of Earnhardt, because he wrecks others, need to truly understand the extent of Earnhardt’s legend.

“The great Dale Earnhardt Sr, he was a seven-time champion, he was the man in black, he did it all and he got everybody’s respect,” Wallace said. “When you looked in the mirror it was like, ‘I better get out of the way because he’s not gonna wreck me but he’s gonna bump me out of the way.'”

“Here’s what I’m gonna say to Ross, ‘Ross, you’re not Dale Sr. by a long shot.’ Dale Sr paid his dues.” 

Wallace furthered his point by shedding a light on the other factors that prove Chastain isn’t even in the position of being remotely close to Earnhardt considering the position in which Richard Childress Racing was back then.

“They were self sufficient. They built all their own motors, they were in complete control. They drew a circle up there in Welcome, North Carolina – ‘We don’t need anybody,'” the veteran driver described. “Dale Sr, Richard Childress, the flying aces, they could do whatever they wanted to.”

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. on NASCAR’s opportunity to capitalize on Chastain

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Speaking in an episode of his podcast, Junior claimed the Chastain-Gragson incident from Kansas “is NASCAR’s opportunity to turn Ross Chastain into from a superstar in the NASCAR bubble to a national star in the mainstream.”

He recalled how people in the late 1980s and into the next decade began capitalizing on his father’s on-track actions.

Earnhardt Jr. claimed that a persona was created around his father through marketing and souvenirs that went all across the country. “The Intimidator, the Man in Black, you know where you saw those for the first time? On a hat. On a tshirt,” Earnhardt Jr explained.

“That was a marketing campaign. It took off. It became a persona. We’re there.”

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