“Don’t Know How They Did It” – Dale Earnhardt Jr Praises NASCAR for Big

2020 has definitely thrown up a lot of challenges for the NASCAR fraternity. Chief among those was the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected the whole world. In spite of all the restrictions, NASCAR took it in stride and bent over backwards when needed, to accommodate the restrictions. Recently, former driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr spoke about how the sport dealt with running the sport efficiently despite the virus.

He said, “He [Steve Phelps] handled it really well when we were put in a tough position with this pandemic. Everyone remembers when teams were at Atlanta, all the trailers had just pulled into the race track. They’re getting phone calls to turn around and go home.”

Dale Jr was right in admitted that it was a crazy time for the sport. He even compared it to the time when the 2001 New Hampshire race had to be moved because of the 9/11 terror attack. According to Dale Earnhardt Jr, something really terrible had to have happened to warrant a race cancellation.

Dale Earnhardt Jr suggested that NASCAR was scared of what this meant

As per the former driver, there were legitimate concerns about whether this would affect the sport in the long term. Before they knew about the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was actually scared. Now, several months down the line, everyone is slowly learning to live with the virus and adapt to a new lifestyle.

Then it got to a point where people wondered if they would go racing once again. A lot of concerns swirled around the danger of people keeping their jobs, whether entire teams would be shut down. Dale Earnhardt Jr confessed that he was not particularly confident about whether the sport could adapt and handle the crisis.

He harked back to when NASCAR was forced to amend its schedule and coordinate with local authorities every time. It was also noteworthy that they could not visit all tracks on the schedule. This was largely because most states were in a bad way and were reluctant to host races.

Dale Jr marveled at how the NASCAR authorities were able to expertly coordinate with various officials and find solutions. “I don’t know how they did it,” Earnhardt Jr. said.

When Steve Phelps spoke to the Dirty Mo Media show, even he was uncertain about a lot of things. This entire season was touch and go and anything could have gone wrong at any time.

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