Dale Earnhardt Jr. And Family Are OK After A Plane Crash, But He'll Take The Weekend Off

 NBC announced Thursday night that NASCAR analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. he will skip Saturday's broadcast of the Big Cup race in Bristol after he, his wife and their little daughter escaped serious injury in a plane crash earlier in the day at a small airport in Elizabethton, Tenn.

Dale, Amy and Isla Earnhardt were on the private jet, n8jr in the queue, flying two pilots when it ran off the Elizabethton runway and caught fire. Kelley Earnhardt, Dale's sister, tweeted shortly after that the family was safe and had been taken to the hospital for evaluation.

"We are incredibly grateful that Dale, his wife Amy, their daughter Isla and the two pilots are safe after today's accident," an NBC spokesperson said in a statement. "After being discharged from the hospital, we communicated with Dale and his team, and we all agreed that he should be taken this weekend to be with his family. We hope to have it back on the stand next month in Darlington.”

Earnhardt will miss one of the most anticipated Cup races of the season, the last scheduled race in August of a night race at Bristol Motor Speedway, the famous half-mile track surrounded by a 162,000-seat bowl.

The race is always one of the most heavily contested of the NASCAR season, and Earnhardt had made it clear during a race Sunday in Michigan that he was looking forward to calling for action. Bristol's second race next year will be in September, when they will face off with the college football season.

PROMOTE

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries BRANDVOICE / payment program

What does it mean that the United States is a net exporter of LNG?

UNICEF USA BRANDVOICE / payment program

For young people in Newtown, CT, political activism comes naturally

Civic Nation BRANDVOICE / payment program

Our school is not complete without you

NASCAR should already have a good idea about how popular college football is on Saturday nights in the fall. Just three years ago, Bristol Motor Speedway held an out-of-conference game between Virginia Tech and Tennessee that drew 156,990, an NCAA single-game record by far.

Although the Bristol bleachers enclose a half-mile race track, making it a little harder to see the field than in a typical football stadium, the "Battle of Bristol" was a huge artistic and commercial success. It was a novelty, but it was also a football match between popular teams from neighboring states.

This weekend, NASCAR will hold its final Cup race on Saturday night in the summer in Bristol for the foreseeable future. The 2020 Cup night race in Bristol is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 19, the third of 10 playoff runs, but on a night when college football is king.

The night race in Bristol (it has two title sponsors, but neither is necessary, and one is embroiled in controversy) has been held in August since 1978, when the race attracted 30,000. The race turned into a spectacle, with cars ramming into each other on a closed track and drivers often bumping each other off the track later, which became NASCAR's most popular ticket.

There was a long waiting list and ticket lotteries through the 1990s, and as recently as 2011, The Night Race in Bristol attracted an estimated 156,000. The slowdown in NASCAR attendance eventually spread to Bristol, too. Last year's race attracted an estimated 95,000. This year's race already has a good buzz.

Bristol, Tenn./Will., it's a stock-car hotbed in a beautiful, mountainous setting, but it's a small metropolis, meaning it's never had many hotel rooms. Hotels in the area could ask, or gubia, for higher prices, but a fan from afar was willing to pay big for the show of the race.

The motorway in Bristol is said to have a capacity of 162,000, which meant last year's Night Race was held before 67,000 empty seats, but 95,000 is still a lot of people. It has been said that ticket sales for this year's race have been running slightly higher.

Kurt Busch chases his brother, Kyle, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race in April... [ + ] 7, 2019 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Kurt Busch chases his brother, Kyle, during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race in April... [ + ] GETTY

That seems to be a good thing, but a lot of people apparently want to go to the Night Race this year because they can Center a summer vacation around the trip, which they won't be able to do next year, because schools will be in session.

NASCAR sent the night Race in Bristol to September because of the prominence and history of the race, and because they could add another crowd-pleasing short track to the playoff schedule. The field will also be trimmed to 12 from 16 after the 2020 Night Race.

The move might very well work, but it seems disconcerting. A large crowd in 2020 is not guaranteed, and Bristol are coming off a cup run on Sunday afternoon on April 7 that attracted a meagre 38,000. The spring race in Bristol doesn't have the cache like the night race, but it still sold out every year from 1983 to 2009. Even Bristol isn't the attraction it used to be, outside of college football, anyway.

Within a year, the second race of the year in Dover, Del., will be held on the weekend currently occupied by The Night Race in Bristol, with the second race of the year at Daytona, the former Firecracker 400, moved from the weekend of July 4 to August. 29.

As with the second Daytona race, The Night Race in Bristol could only remain in place for 2020, after which the NASCAR Cup schedule could undergo more dramatic changes. It's hard to imagine any Cup schedule without a night race in Bristol.

Yet another stock-car tradition seems to be coming to an end, and it's unknown how NASCAR will fare when it heads with college football on Saturday night, both on the track and on television.

The Tennessee Vols play Furman at home in September football. 19, 2020, and the Virginia Tech Hokies play Middle Tennessee, not Titanic inclinations. But there will be football covering all day on TV.

NASCAR faces nothing much this weekend, in sharp contrast. Maybe NASCAR knows something the rest of us don't.