"I'm not going to worry": Dale Earnhardt Jr. lays out bold vision for restoring the Daytona 500’s lost magic

Retired NASCAR Cup Series star Dale Earnhardt Jr. laid out his vision for what the Daytona 500 should be in the future after a chaotic ending to this year's "Great American Race." In order to keep race fans intuned to the Daytona 500 in years to come, NASCAR's former Most Popular Driver wants racing at draft tracks to be reimagined.

On the latest episode of his podcast "Dale Jr. Download," the owner of JR Motorsports made it clear that he doesn't enjoy watching today's racing product on the drafting track. Between the drivers saving fuel, to being unable to pass, to the multitude of multi-car crashes, the two-time Daytona 500 winner said NASCAR needs to do something to improve the racing in the Daytona 500.

When asked if he thought the Daytona 500 would begin to lose its prestige if the racing product stays the same over the next few years, Earnhardt said he isn't concerned about that because he believe NASCAR can find a solution. He said:

"I'm not going to worry about that because I think we can fix it, if we can take this issue seriously and really go after trying to make it different and improve it. Let's not f****** add a stage or make them put a smaller fuel cell in there. Those are band-aids. Let's not add gimmicks. That is not a long-term solution. Those are things that will get somebody back tomorrow but they won't stay. We've got to reimagine how to do this from the very basics and see if we can't have an entirely different product." (52:54 onwards)

This year's Daytona 500 saw its fair share of multi-car wrecks, including one with 15 laps to go that took out big-time contenders in Joey Logano and Kyle Busch. With less than 10 laps to go, another multi-car wreck set off on the backstretch that saw Ryan Preece's #60 RFK Racing Ford launch into the air and flip multiple times.

On the final lap, a crash involving race leader Denny Hamlin, Cole Custer, and others allowed William Byron to sneak through from seventh place and win his second straight Daytona 500 in his #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

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Denny Hamlin said Daytona 500 finish "kills" his enthusiasm

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't the only one on the Dirty Mo Media airwaves expressing frustration with the racing in last Sunday's Daytona 500. Denny Hamlin, who was leading on the last lap until he was taken out in a crash, also voiced his displeasure with how things went down.

On his most recent episode of his "Actions Detrimental" podcast, Hamlin said:

"That's what then kills my enthusiasm for this whole thing. This is what I wanted to do as a kid and I reached the top level and I was about to get my fourth. It was no guarantee, but I was gonna have a really good shot at getting my fourth and putting myself in elite company with the greats of our sport, that won it by the way when there was two cars on the lead lap. It's a different world now and it's hard to put yourself in that class. It's frustrating because I don't know what else I do different," he said. (30:41 onwards)

Had Hamlin won, he would've joined Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough as one of only three drivers in history to have won at least four Daytona 500s. The driver of the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing won the Daytona 500 in 2016, 2019, and 2020.