Dale Earnhardt Jr., TJ Majors debate making Atlanta NASCAR regular season finale

With the show that EchoPark Speedway in Atlanta puts on, should it be the regular season finale instead of Daytona? Dale Earnhardt Jr. is among those who think that the move could be for the best. But where would Daytona go? The NASCAR Hall of Famer weighed in.

We have seen three-wide finishes at Atlanta, great battles for position, massive runs, and overall great racing. Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes that Atlanta should replace Daytona as the regular season finale. Many fans would like to see the second Daytona race move back to the 4th of July.

As Earnhardt tells it, there is a problem with that proposition. But moving Atlanta to the finale wouldn’t be too difficult. As long as Daytona can find a suitable date for that second race.

“So, with that all said, do you take Atlanta and put it as the last race of the regular season? I know that, you know, I don’t think that means you take Daytona and put it where Atlanta is,” he said on the Dale Jr. Download. “We’ve already went through this, where the city of Daytona – so the Daytona race was the July 4th event. Once it moved away, the city of Daytona went, ‘Man, we like this, we don’t need it to go back to that, you know, we don’t need it to go back to the way it was ever again. Because now we have two holidays. We have July 4th, when we get a lot of people because it’s July 4th. Then we have the race later when a lot of people come into town. We don’t need them on the same date.’

“So, the city loves how things are now. So, I don’t know that you move Daytona back to July, around the 4th. But could Daytona just move to another part of the year? I think absolutely it could, and having Atlanta as the final race of the regular season, to me, sounds like a no-brainer. What do you think?”

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s cohost, TJ Majors, wasn’t so sure about it. But more or less agreed that Atlanta would be a better option over Daytona. And this last race wasn’t exactly the most realistic example of how races play out there.

“Oh, I’m taking Atlanta. Because Atlanta, at least you can, at least you got a chance to really … I mean, I like Atlanta because you’ve got a chance to get away from others a little bit and you can kinda control your own destiny a little bit more at Atlanta, even though I know the end of the race ended up with teammates helping each other,” Majors said. “But it wasn’t like, I don’t know, it’s still really hard for me because if you look at some of the Atlanta races before, like, if that big wreck doesn’t happen, do those Penske cars control those top two lines like they did before?”

If you’re going to have a drafting track as the regular season finale, why not Atlanta? Daytona could have a pick of a few dates for its second race of the season. I think fans would love to see it. Or perhaps you just make Atlanta the new July 4th “Firecracker” race. What about that? A bit of a best of both worlds situation with that option.