Dale Earnhardt Jr. is no longer a full-time driver in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he remains a very active participant in the sport.
The son of the legendary Dale Sr. owns an Xfinity Series team, while also serving as a broadcaster for Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports. He’s an active participant in discussions surrounding the sport, too.
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In 2024, NASCAR unveiled an electric car prototype. Now, there’s a growing push for Crossover Utility Vehicles (CUVs) to be used full-time in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series.
NASCAR’s executive vice president and chief racing development officer, John Probst, thinks it could happen.
“If you look at the brand identity of those three, the O’Reilly Series struggles a little bit just from the car perspective and you see it a lot because we refer to it often as whoever the entitlement sponsor is,” he said.
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“Long term, you see it as we do, have that CUV body that we developed for our electric vehicle. I’m not sitting here saying today we’re breaking news it’s going to CUV, but these are the things that are on the roadmap to consider.
“So, you’d have a Truck, a CUV, and a Cup. That’s three very different bodies that are relevant for our OEMs today to create that brand identity for each series.”
“There is certainly a needle to be threaded there along the line of entertainment and sport, and maybe you can even go beyond sport and just say pure engineering. I think for us, I feel like we don’t need to be on the absolute bleeding edge of powertrain technology to be relevant to our OEMs and also be entertaining to our fans.”
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But Dale Jr. is ‘strongly’ opposed to that idea.
Dale Jr. speaks out on proposed change
Dale Jr. spoke out, making it clear that he’s not a fan of it.
“I hope this never happens,” he wrote.
NASCAR fans are in line with him.
“Right there with you, if they do this I’m a gonna have to tap out,” one wrote.
“This absolutely cannot happen. Dale, you’re one of the few who can actually singlehandedly take a stand and squash this kind of stuff. Please keep speaking up,” one fan added.
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“Dale say it louder !! We need our nascar family and legends to help save our sport! The fans can only do so much ! we don’t want EV we want V8!!!” one shared.
Dale Jr. has a lot of support behind his take, that is clear.
This story was originally published by The Spun on Apr 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the NASCAR section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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