Dale Earnhardt Jr. Says Netflix NASCAR Series ‘Can Improve People’s Opinion of

• The Netflix series wasn’t the first for Dale Earnhardt Jr. as an executive producer.
• Earnhardt says statistics show the majority of the people that started the program watched it to its conclusion, which he believes speaks to its good content.
• The five-part docuseries follows the 16 drivers competing for the 2023 championship through the 10-race playoffs.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. says the Netflix Series NASCAR: Full Speed will elevate the sport, but it needs to continue for several seasons to impact the fan base.

“Netflix is gonna have a lot of people see this documentary that have never seen a NASCAR race. Never thought to tune into a NASCAR race, much less go to one in person,” says Earnhardt, one of the show’s executive producers. “They’re gonna watch a show on Netflix because that’s their personal habit, their activity that they do in the evenings during the week when they get home from work.

“If we can lock in and get several seasons on Netflix, we have that potential to grow our audience (in person as well as on TV) … improve our position in society and improve people’s opinion of our sport.”

Earnhardt says statistics show the majority of the people that started the program watched it to its conclusion, which he believes speaks to its good content. He was pleased with the series overall. However, in the fifth and final part of the series, he would liked to have seen more coverage of Ryan Blaney’s activities after he won the NASCAR Cup championship at Phoenix Raceway.

“I know that he had to stay late,” Earnhardt says. “He was still standing on the race track when I got back in North Carolina, still taking pictures. I would have loved to have figured out a way for us to capture that part, showing what the driver experiences. It would have been nice to tag on to the back end of the episode so it wouldn’t have felt like we rushed to the edge of the cliff, and it was over. It would have been nice to have had a cool-down lap.

“The first four episodes were a very, slow, casual, get-to-know everybody storyline and then the last episode felt hurried. In my opinion, it was because of the anticipation and anxiety or the nervousness of that final event.”

The Netflix series wasn’t the first for Earnhardt as an executive producer. The owner of Dirty Mo Media became interested in the profession after he retired as a driver. Many people mark the beginning of his producing days with the show Back In The Day that aired on the Speed Channel. He also has done historical automotive-based shows on the Discovery channel.

The docuseries followed the 16 NASCAR Cup Series Playoff drivers through the grind of the postseason.

When he joined NBC Sports, people were introduced to Lost Speedways. He had a third season of that show ready to go and was waiting on a network to pick it up. Earnhardt enjoys creating a show and then overseeing its production. It’s…