February 15, 2022: at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Chris Owens)
Brad Keselowski in the No. 6 RFK Racing Ford Mustang. (HHP/Chris Owens Photo)
NASCAR Cup Series

NASCAR Notes: RFK Racing Penalty Upheld; Dale Jr.’s Martinsville Return

April 7, 2022

Ahead of this weekend’s NASCAR races at Martinsville Speedway, here’s a roundup of notable NASCAR tidbits and news items from this week.

RFK Racing Penalty Upheld

NASCAR’s massive points penalty against RFK Racing for illegally modifying a part on the Next Gen car was upheld Thursday after the team’s appeal was heard by the National Motorsports Appeals Panel.

The Appeals Panel members for the hearing: Dixon Johnston, Bill Mullis and Dale Pinilis.

RFK Racing announced it will not appeal the penalty further.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Takes on Martinsville

In case you’ve been busy, here’s an important PSA: Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back.

The 2022 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee returns to the NASCAR Xfinity Series Friday night for his annual start in the series.

The 15-time most popular driver will take to Martinsville Speedway in JR Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevrolet.

Why did Earnhardt choose the half-mile track?

Simple: “I just love short track racing.”

Earnhardt discussed his choice of track Thursday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “The Morning Drive.”

“Some of the best (short track racing) we see all year is at Martinsville,” Earnhardt said. “I just always loved trying to figure out how to get around there, you’re always busy racing, not only just the track, the curb, the corners, trying to save a little bit of time and drive off and manage the tire somewhat. You’re busy racing other cars all the time, you’re never alone. So there’s either somebody right on your bumper, or you’re trying to get around the guy in front of you.

“So it’s a racetrack that I enjoyed a lot as a driver. I was thankful that we were able to have the Xfinity Series get back to Martinsville. And as soon as we started going back there (in 2020) that really piqued my interest to try to get back to that racetrack and get some more laps in. So that’s really my main motivation is just to go and run laps, have fun, smell all the smells and hear all the sounds and be reminded of all the things that I loved about driving the car and and competition.”

Earnhardt last made a NASCAR start at Martinsville in the fall 2017 Cup race there, where he finished 11th. In 35 starts at NASCAR’s oldest track, Earnhardt won just once, in 2014, and earned 13 top fives.

This will be his first Xfinity Series race there.

“I got zero expectations on performance or where we finish,” Earnhardt said. “I want to do well, but I don’t have a clue how that might work out. I just want to go run all the laps, cross the finish line. And if I can do all that I’ll have a smile on the face tomorrow.”

Race Length Changes?

This Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup race at Martinsville will mark a historic one for the half-mile track in Southern Virginia.

It will be the first time in the Modern Era that the Cup Series has held a 400-mile race after traditionally only having 500-mile events.

Race length was a topic following last month’s Cup race on the reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race was run in three hours, 57 minutes and 14 seconds. That was 28 minutes longer than the average for the race.

Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s newly appointed vice president of racing development and strategy, addressed NASCAR’s view of how long races are.

“I do think one of the things that we need to continue to think about and challenge ourselves on is the length of the race,” Kennedy told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Wednesday. “(Atlanta) was a longer race that we had longer than anticipated for sure. And I think it’s something that we’ll continue to think about, not only as we think about Atlanta, but as you think about other events too. I think it’s important that we continue to have, kind of those longer events that we’ve traditionally had, but at the same time, with attention spans getting shorter and people looking for more snackable content.

“I think it’s important for us to really think about how long should our events be and kind of what does that look like and what factors does that have on the rest of the industry, too.”

The July race at Atlanta will be a 400-mile event for the second consecutive year.

2023 Schedule Changes?

Don’t expect huge changes to how the NASCAR schedule will look in 2023.

Kennedy told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that while NASCAR wants “to continue to be bold” when it comes to scheduling, that next season’s Cup schedule will “probably see maybe one or two changes.”

“I don’t think we’ll see the same kind of level of changes (as in the last few years),” Kennedy said. “We’ll have meaningful changes, but maybe not the same kind of quantity of changes in ’23.”

One of the rumored changes could be the addition of a street course race in Chicago.

“We’re definitely continuing to consider all options from a scheduling standpoint,” Kennedy said back in March. “Chicago has been one of them. Nothing to confirm at this point. We’re still looking at a handful of different options, not only thinking about 2023 but 2024 and beyond.”

Kennedy said a 2023 schedule announcement right now is expected this summer.

Different Winners To Start Season

With Denny Hamlin’s win Sunday at Richmond Raceway he became the seventh different driver to win in the first seven Cup races of the year.

How close is that to the record?

If someone new wins Saturday night, it would mark just the third time in the Modern Era there’s been eight different winners through the first eight races (2000, 2003). But that’s still not a record.

The record is 10, which came in 2000.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. snapped that streak by winning his second race of the season at Richmond (Race No. 11).

Martinsville ‘Easter Egg’ Hunt

Sure, Denny Hamlin has won a lot at Martinsville Speedway.

He’s earned five grandfather clocks for his victories on the half-mile track.

But with the Next Gen car, none of that means squat going into this weekend’s race.

Hamlin said everything is “week-to-week” given the newness of the car.

“We (could) win this week, we could run 15th. I have no idea,” Hamlin said. “Until we go back to a track for the second time, everything is so new that it’s impossible to predict.”

Chris Gabehart, Hamlin’s crew chief, said Martinsville could wind up “being one of the more different races” for a veteran like Hamlin in the car.

“Denny is so honed in at Martinsville through so many different types of cars over his career,” Gabehart said. “In a Cup car, we took 80 horsepower away from him, gave him two-inch wider car, it is a 200-pound heavier car, it has a higher center of gravity and better brakes. He’s going to go to Martinsville in the first 10 laps and be as lost as last year’s Easter egg.”

TV Ratings

Another week, another good TV ratings report for the NASCAR Cup Series.

Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400 had an average viewer rating of 3,958,00 viewers. It peaked at 4.4 million.

The average was up 18% over last year’s spring Richmond race (3,348,000 million). It was also up 27% over the seventh race of last year on Bristol dirt, but that was delayed to Monday by rain.

This Saturday’s Cup race at Martinsville is the first of the year that will air on Fox Sports 1 (7:30 p.m. ET).