How NASCAR Can Potentially Recover After Dale Earnhardt Jr. Retires

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. officially retires, you can bet that a lot of NASCAR fans will be going with him. But here is how NASCAR can recover from that impending loss.

It would be absolutely impossible for 14-time defending winner of NASCAR‘s Most Popular Driver Award Dale Earnhardt Jr. to retire without having a huge impact on both the sport itself and the fan base.

But perhaps the biggest impact that his retirement will have is its impact on the media. After all, Hendrick Motorsports’ Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been the sport’s most popular driver for 14 years now, and he’s the guy that people want to hear about first and foremost, thus making him the media’s go-to man for news and analysis, and Beyond the Flag is no exception.

The public feeds off of what the media puts out there, and the media feeds off of the public’s reaction. It’s a never-ending cycle in not only motorsports but sports in general, as well as other things such as entertainment and politics.

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So while Dale Earnhardt Jr. retiring may seem like a bad thing, and it likely will be in the immediate aftermath of his retirement, the impact that his retirement will have on the media may actually cause something to happen that could result in many of the fans that said they’d leave the sport along with him to stay.

Without Dale Earnhardt Jr. driving, NASCAR will obviously have a new winner of the Most Popular Driver Award since no other active driver has ever won it. What this means is that the media will have to work a bit harder to find out a little bit more about a select few drivers to replace their go-to man. They will need someone who the public can feed off of when they publish news and articles, and someone who will allow them to feed off of the public’s reaction. But just who will that next Most Popular Driver Award winner be, and who will be close behind?

Well, just twice since 1984 has the winner of NASCAR’s Most Popular not been named Earnhardt or Elliott, so the sport could definitely be kept alive if a lot of the media learns more about and gives the fans more news and coverage on the son of Bill Elliott, the 21-year-old second-year driver Chase Elliott who took over the duties driving the #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet upon Jeff Gordon’s retirement.

As the winner of the Monster Energy Fan Vote, Elliott already has a pretty sizable following among the sport’s fans. If the media can feed off of this now as opposed to later and establish him as their next go-to guy after Dale Earnhardt Jr., the amount of fans that leave the sport would not be as high. Elliott, like Earnhardt Jr., is a Hendrick Motorsports driver, and he has already shown great potential in just one-plus season in the sport.

And in my honest opinion, Elliott’s talent is already more than what Earnhardt Jr.’s ever was, even though Elliott hasn’t yet won a race in 54 starts. After all, he’s still only 21 years old and can’t be expected to win race after race quite yet.

Another potential go-to driver for the media to replace Dale Earnhardt Jr. with is Kyle Larson. In his fourth full-time season in the Cup Series, Larson has already won multiple races and is currently in 2nd place in this season’s championship standings through 13 races at just 24 years of age.

Sure, Larson is definitely becoming more popular as a result of his great success thus far in his career, but the media has yet to exploit that to its full potential. Given his success already as a newer driver, the media would be foolish not to start talking about him more and more right now before Earnhardt Jr. is officially an ex-driver.

Like with Chase Elliott, I also believe that Kyle Larson has more talent as a driver than Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever did. So if done properly, the media could convert Larson to their go-to driver, and more and more fans would see that NASCAR truly is not going to be all that bad without Earnhardt Jr.

With Danica Patrick potentially in her final season as a full-time NASCAR driver as well, that would mean the media’s top two favorite go-to drivers would no longer be racing. So they really need to start looking through the other drivers and selecting a few that they can get the public to feed off of once Dale Earnhardt Jr. retires. The drivers mentioned above would certainly be good drivers to start with.

The bottom line is that regardless of who ends up being the media’s next go-to NASCAR driver with Dale Earnhardt Jr. retiring, there will definitely need to be at least one of those go-to drivers in order to help maintain a solid amount of the fans that otherwise would leave the sport along with Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt Jr.’s popularity is something that has been consistent for so many years in NASCAR, so when he leaves, there will definitely need to be someone else that takes his place as the media’s go-to driver for the sport to thrive as it has for so long. For the media, getting to know some of the other rising stars now instead of later will give them a good head start and give the sport a good chance of not losing too many fans once Earnhardt Jr. has officially retired.

Next: Should Dale Jr. Retire Early?

Do you think that the media will do the best they can to find other go-to drivers once Dale Earnhardt Jr. has retired to retain a solid amount of his fans? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to follow me on Instagram as well as Beyond the Flag on both Instagram and Twitter. Also, don’t forget to follow along with Beyond the Flag for the latest news, opinions, and analysis stemming from a number of different motorsports series. You don’t want to miss any of it.

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