Dale Earnhardt Jr is credited with resurrecting the abandoned North Wilkesboro Speedway. All it needed was for him and his crew to help clean the racetrack for its continued presence on the iRacing gaming platform. Taking note of his effort to breathe life back into the iconic venue, NASCAR followed suit and returned with the All-Star race event last season. A trend that has continued in 2024.

But that’s not it. Dale Jr is now hoping NASCAR returns to points racing at the venue, and he wants the Xfinity Series to initiate the move. After the Circuit of America Xfinity event, the JR Motorsports co-owner made a somewhat controversial suggestion of skipping the Austin race next year and adding North Wilkesboro to the schedule.

Dale Earnhardt wants to replace the road course COTA Xfinity race with the North Wilkesboro race next season

It seems that the track limit restrictions and the penalties got the better of Dale Jr during the Xfinity Series race at the road course track in Austin, Texas. The race saw a total of 17 track-limit penalties handed out to the drivers. One of those seventeen was brandished to JRM driver Brandon Jones, who had to forfeit his stage win, thanks to the penalty by NASCAR officials.

Venting out his frustration with the events, Dale Jr took to X and wrote, “It’s ok to love Nascar and hate track limits at the same time. This is also a good lesson in learning to control (my) anger and frustration.” This was not it, he went on to add, “In ‘25 Xfinity should run spring Bristol and then straight to Wilkesboro instead of Austin.”

However, out of all the track penalties, the most severe one was handed to Kaulig Racing road course specialist, Shane van Gisbergen. The Kiwi speedster was in contention to win the race, but multiple overtimes forced him to cut corners on the race track, a move that came to bite him back. For all his troubles and finishing second, he was handed a 30-second penalty, which saw him stumble down to 27th place in the final standings.

While the race at COTA had its fair share of chaotic moments, NASCAR fans were not receptive to Dale Jr’s comments about skipping the race in Austin and adding North Wilkesboro to the Xfinity schedule in 2025.

Fans react to Dale Earnhardt’s comments about skipping the COTA race for the 2025 Xfinity Series

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Usually, NASCAR fans have Jr’s back when he makes a new suggestion or idea for the betterment of the sport. However, this time, his remarks about skipping the COTA road course race for the Xfinity Series have not gone down well with several fans.

Replying to Jr, one fan suggested that his frustration was largely because his team did not perform well. “Dale is this because your cars didn’t do that well today you can be honest”

Disagreeing with his remarks, another fan chimed in, stating it was a great race, “Disagree that was a great race. But yeah probably costly to a few teams”

Taking a jibe at JRM’s performance on the day, a user wrote, “Love ya Dale, but that race was great! JRM needs to get better overall, have to know track limits and where to place the car. I’m sure it’s tough when performance isn’t meeting the standards y’all set”

One sarcastic fan suggested that NASCAR races should be run within the close vicinity of Dale Jr house. “Let’s run every race, Trucks, X and Cup, within 50 miles of Junior’s house so that we can make him happy”

However, a move by NASCAR to add North Wilkesboro to the Xfinity schedule would be a welcoming change. But not at the expense of the road course race at COTA.

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