Dale Earnhardt Jr Backs Marks' 3 Million All-Star Race Push
Justin Marks wants NASCAR to change the All-Star Race, and dale earnhardt jr is part of the conversation around the sport’s future. The Trackhouse Racing owner said the current format no longer makes economic sense and floated a “Speed Festival” as a replacement for All-Star Weekend.
Marks said the race has carried a $1 million payout for a couple of decades, even as inflation and the cost of getting to the racetrack have climbed. He said a $3 million or $4 million payout, with better money spread through the field, would line up more closely with what teams now spend.
Marks Wants A Speed Festival
Marks pushed the idea further with a format that would move beyond a traditional race. He suggested a “Speed Festival” that could include a drag race, a pit stop competition and a burnout competition, then be packaged as a TV show and a “Coachella of speed” type event.
He said, “I’ve suggested having like a Speed Festival, like maybe it’s not even a competitive event on a racetrack, but we go to the strip in Vegas and do a drag race and the pit stop competition and a burnout competition, and we engage the fans and turn it into a TV show. And we do this kind of like Coachella of speed type thing.” The idea would shift the showcase away from the current all-or-nothing structure and toward a broader weekend format.
All-Star Weekend Under Pressure
The push comes after this past weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race drew criticism over its format and multiple wrecks. Fans were left with a sour taste, and the event’s long-standing $1 million prize only sharpened the debate around whether the payoff still matches the risk and cost.
Marks put that math bluntly. “If it was 3 or 4 million bucks and paid better through the field, that would make more economic sense,” he said. “It’s paid a million bucks for a couple of decades now, and... they’ve never factored inflation into it. It never factored the increased cost of going to the racetrack into it. So, a million bucks is awesome, but you know, it’s like 16 days of payroll or like 18 days of payroll for these big teams. So if it was three or four million bucks and paid better through the field, that would make more economic sense if we’re just looking at the economics.”
NASCAR has tried parts of that weekend already. The sport previously held a pit crew contest and a burnout contest, and the pit crew event was mostly head-to-head before 2023. Marks’ proposal pulls those pieces into one larger format, while the current race remains tied to a prize that has not changed since 2003.
For teams, the argument is simple: the weekend now asks for more than it pays. For fans, the bigger question is whether NASCAR wants to preserve the race as a tradition or use All-Star Weekend to test a different show built around speed, short competitions and spectacle.
