As NASCAR heads to San Diego this weekend, there has been a lot of chatter surrounding the track. Dale Earnhardt Jr chimed in on the chatter, but he has raised concern over the potential lengthy caution periods. 

The Qualcomm Circuit is one of a kind, as it is set inside the Naval Base in Coronado. The 3.4-mile temporary track will host its inaugural NASCAR race on Sunday. However, the track is extremely bumpy, along with intricate sections and blind spots. This has increased the probability of the race being plagued by long caution periods. 

"If you look at you remember the downhill at Road America. There's a couple of those there. They're very similar, and those are inviting potential hazards," Dale Earnhardt Jr said via the June 17 episode of Dale Jr. Download on Spotify.

On the podcast, he further spoke about the bumpy nature of the track that could be problematic for some of the drivers. He further said,

 "So, there's a couple of downhills into some breaking zones that I think are going to be problematic with some guys. And there and down at the bottom of those, there's some bumps and so forth in there's all kinds of bumps and problematic issues."

Earnhardt Jr. also explained just how much time could be lost under yellow flag conditions due to the challenging layout of the new Qualcomm Circuit.

"If we have a car that has contact with a wall and can't continue, they're going to have to throw a caution. Caution laps, there are going to be five minutes," said Earnhardt Jr. "A caution lap around that racetrack is going to take, let's just say, six minutes, and if we can't get, you know, if you have four caution laps, so you got to come by, open up pit road, 20 minutes. Oh man, you have 20-minute cautions."

However, Dale Jr has not only pointed out the problematic areas but has also given NASCAR a solution as to how they could probably avoid long caution periods. 

Earnhardt Jr Presents NASCAR With a Solution

In the same podcast episode, the JR Motorsports owner talks about how NASCAR could avoid lengthy caution periods. 

He, along with his co-host TJ Majors, presented a hypothetical situation where, if the caution comes out right before the stage ends, the officials should consider ending the stage early and entering the caution cycle. 

"You're asking basically if the caution were to come out three laps before the end of the stage, why not throw the stage green checker, green checker right there and say, 'Hey, the stage is ending early, and now we're going to start that cycle so we can get back racing," continued Earnhardt Jr. "This would be a perfect example of that I could think of where you would want to do that."

The Cup series driver will get a feel of the track during the practise session ahead of qualifying on Saturday. This will give an idea about how the cars will fare at the track.

What are your thoughts on the track?

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Written by

Chionia Libania Colaco

Edited by

Zaid Quraishi