Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants big changes to the Daytona 500 to bring NASCAR's crown jewel back to life

The Superspeedway racing in NASCAR is one of the biggest problems in the sport right now, along with the high-voltage disputes about the playoff format and the Next Gen car's effect on the quality of the competition. A lot of people, like Dale Earnhardt Jr., have their own opinions on the issue and have tried to talk about it in public.

Earnhardt talked about the same thing in one of his recent chats. He thinks that both NASCAR and the fans need to embrace the tough truth.

What does Dale Earnhardt Jr. want to change about the Superspeedway events?

As the Cup Series seasons go on, the Superspeedway races, which used to be thought of as NASCAR's biggest events, have turned into a game of survival where chance is the most important thing. Because all the cars are so evenly matched, a driver can't really get ahead just by going faster.

Because of this, drafting becomes the most crucial thing, and with so many cars in a drafting chain, a tragedy is just waiting to happen. There has been a lot of talk recently about how the Daytona and Talladega races are going downhill and how they are becoming more and more of a problem in the sport.

On this week's episode of the "Dale Jr. Download" podcast, Earnhardt Jr. talked about the same thing and said that adding a fourth stage to the Superspeedway races would be the answer to it all.

In NASCAR, late-race "big ones" have become common, and a lot of it has to do with drivers wanting to get as many points as they can from the race.

According to Earnhardt, the new fourth stage will provide drivers a lot of chances to score as many points as they can without getting into an accident with more than one car.

"Fans didn't like this idea." I talked about this on this show. We were talking about how the last limited plate event featured a first stage where everyone raced really hard. And it's like, "If we want to keep that style of racing going, maybe we should take out all the fuel (mileage) and add a fourth stage."

The 50-year-old said that the Coca-Cola 600 comprises four stages, which gives drivers a unique chance to gain extra points. You can do the same thing with the Daytona and Talladega events to make the Crown Jewel events even more appealing.

Adding a fourth stage to the fuel mileage race will get rid of the need for drivers to give it their all in the last few laps. There will be new race strategies, and because the race will be spread out across four stages, multi-car crashes may happen less often.