Dale Earnhardt Jr. airs it out on the biggest issue in NASCAR Cup Series today

Dale Earnhardt Jr. revealed the biggest issue in the NASCAR Cup Series after the race at Michigan International Speedway. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt talked about how fuel continues to be a problem after each race.

“Until they can figure out a way to fuel the car faster than changing the tires, we’re going to have lots of conversation around fuel,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “You made the tire-changing part last nine seconds, so how can you get the car to fuel faster?”

That led to Earnhardt talking about fuel-mileage races being an issue. “You don’t want every single one to be a fuel-mileage race,” he said. Earnhardt was then asked if stages at tracks that are a mile and a half mess up fuel usage. “Do they aid in it? Yeah, probably. But I still feel like you’re going to run the race as you would run road courses,” Earnhardt explained.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. shares more on fuel mileage at NASCAR races

“When we took the stages away from the road courses a couple of years back, it got boring and dumb because everybody just ran the races traditionally backwards. They do the fuel mileage backwards, and they start coming to pit road as soon as they can make it, and they’re going to try to spend as little time as possible on pit road putting fuel in the car. If we took the stages away at Michigan, as soon as you can get in the window to get home and make it, you’re coming to pit road and you’re taking as much fuel as you need and nobody’s going to pit in the last 40 laps or so.”

Earnhardt’s thoughts came after Denny Hamlin won the Michigan race in a fuel-mileage competition. Hamlin claimed the victory after he took the lead from William Byron who had to pit after running out of fuel.

“It was just trying to manage both: Try to keep the lead and save fuel down the straights and on exits,” Byron told Prime Video pit reporter Kim Coon after the race, per NBC Sports. “That one you can’t do a lot about. It sucks. It really stings, but we had a really good car. I thought we executed well on the last stop. We just burned more (fuel) and not able to do much about that. It is what it is.”