Austin Dillon urges NASCAR to return to dirt races and short tracks in Cup Series

NASCAR star Austin Dillon has encouraged the sport to go back to more short tracks, or dirt races.

The Richard Childress Racing star told the Daytona Beach News-Journal that he found that the Next Gen car handled dirt racing well at Bristol because of its suspension and bigger tires, and named it as a possible avenue for the sport to go back down.

Dillon was talking about some tracks which could be added to the NASCAR schedule after Chicagoland hosted its first Cup race since 2019 on Sunday, and dropped a couple of interesting names.

For those who like the intermediates he suggested Kentucky Speedway, before moving on to namecheck a couple of short tracks – South Boston Speedway in Virginia and Stafford Speedway in Connecticut – which haven't hosted a Cup race in over 50 years (or ever, in Stafford's case).

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Dillon: NASCAR should pick a short track and run it

“We’ve proven we can go to these short tracks that are pretty popular and run on them and make racing happen,” he said. “I think we should probably choose another short track that’s a fan favorite and go try to run a race on it. It’s good to go to these short tracks and get out there for our core fanbase.”

On Chicagoland itself, he said: “I thought the racing was great. Our tires wore out pretty bad. We had a little issue with our right rear, but I loved the fact that we could race all over the track and saw some pretty good racing.”

He added: “I wouldn't mind [Chicagoland staying on the calendar]. I think it’s a cool track, and it gives us multiple grooves to race on. I like that it kind of eats away at some tires. I think it’s a good racetrack, that’s for sure.

“We’ve got to make sure the fans and everybody shows up to it. But I bet the ratings from a TV aspect will be good from that race because it was a good one.”