Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not a fan of later NASCAR race start times, even out west

Even though he’s retired from driving, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is still a powerful force in stock car racing, and NASCAR might want to take heed to his feelings on the start times of its races.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is certainly an evangelist for NASCAR and what’s good about the sport, but he’s also never been shy about expressing his opinion on things he doesn’t like. These days, since he’s not at the track every week, those thoughts sometimes come across the clearest on social media.

That was definitely true on Sunday before the Auto Club 400 in California. Junior wasn’t at Auto Club Speedway for the race and was simply waiting for it to start like the rest of us.

By about 2:30 p.m., he was already tired of waiting.

The problem, of course, was that there was still more than an hour to go until the green flag waved. Earnhardt explained that the late starts were even more excruciating as a fan than a driver, though he didn’t care for them then either.

So why do the NASCAR Goes West races start so late? Ostensibly, it’s so that fans who go to the races in person in Las Vegas (the one place it might actually be an issue, given the nightlife options), Phoenix and Fontana don’t have to watch races that start at 10:00 a.m. local time. However, as Dave Caldwell of Forbes correctly points out, most fans who attend NASCAR events in person get to the track early anyway.

As you can probably guess by now, Junior has no issue with races starting that early — or even earlier.

For years, NASCAR started all of its Sunday afternoon races at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time or shortly thereafter. But it has made exceptions for the races in the west, and for at least a decade, there’s been pressure applied by networks and sponsors to start races later on Sundays when their research suggests more people are watching TV.

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The thing is, that strategy hasn’t worked, because as anyone who follows the sport knows, TV ratings for NASCAR have been in a decline for this entire decade. No one is suggesting that the viewing audiences would magically return if races started earlier, but it might help prevent the remaining loyal fans from tuning out.

Especially one big one named Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr.