NASCAR's most popular driver, fired a shot at some track owners who say drivers aren't doing their part to help sell tickets.
"That's not true," Earnhardt told reporters at NASCAR's annual pre-Daytona 500 media day. "We do winner's circle programs, we're constantly doing things every week for this guy and that guy to help race tracks. We were in Daytona for Fan Fest, I read off 20 damn scripts about selling tickets, that very thing.
"They've got to take a little responsibility for themselves. I was thinking the other day they ought to build their own hotels that way they can bring the hotel prices down and control the hotel prices in the region and make a little bit of money."
Earnhardt went on to dispute the assertion that live attendance is down because drivers aren't doing their part.
"People aren't coming to the race track because the drivers don't (care)," he said. "People are not coming to the race track because it's expensive to do it. Drivers do pitch in, drivers do try to go that extra mile and we're willing to do more. It's very easy to sit down and shoot a damn 30-second commercial. It's a piece of cake. I can do it at home. We got that NASCAR tech center where we can do live teleconferences for an hour.
"We can push all we can push but they've got to get a little more creative. They can't expect people to come back and spend that amount of money in this economy
