Deb Williams, the pioneering NASCAR journalist, while speaking to Dale Earnhardt Jr., recalled the time when she met Burt Reynolds. On an episode of Dale Jr. Download, the two also recalled the time NASCAR was engulfed by the filming of Days of Thunder.Williams is an award-winning and respected motorsports journalist whose career has lasted more than 40 years. Her journalism career started in the late 1970s with United Press International and she became the first woman to report on NASCAR on a regular basis.Williams was the editor of NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for over 10 years and has written in other respected publications. Recently, it was announced that Williams would be receiving the 2026 Squier-Hall Award for NASCAR media excellence.Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Deb Williams discussed the racing film "Days of Thunder". The latter also spoke about the time she interviewed Burt Reynolds during the shooting of the 1983 movie "Stroker Ace".Reynolds was courteous and talked of how he was impressed by people in the sport of NASCAR. Williams also stated that the large contract that is depicted in the film was a parody of an actual contract between NASCAR drivers Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough.Williams was also able to identify the specific sites where the scenes from Days of Thunder occurred, including the ice cream-eating scene, which was shot at Darlington Raceway when Benny Parsons was racing and Harry Hyde was the crew chief. Williams said to Dale Jr.:"I was given like 20 minutes with him. He was very nice, very polite. And, you know, he talked about how he was impressed by the people in the sport. Brought a magic, I would say, to the sport. Created a lot of eyes on it that people had not paid really attention to it before. It put a little glamour in the sport is what it did. And, you know, the big contract that he had in there, that's a spoof on the Darrell Waltrip-Digard contract."She further added:"And Days of Thunder, I can pretty much pinpoint to you where all it happened. You know, like where they're eating ice cream. That was at Darlington when Benny Parsons was in the car and Harry Hyde was crew chief."Meanwhile, Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently expressed his view that NASCAR's playoff format is likely to undergo major changes, specifically mentioning the possibility of a three or four-race title decider to replace the current single-race, winner-takes-all format.Dale Earnhardt Jr. foresees a major change in NASCAR’s championship deciding systemDale Earnhardt Jr. believes that expanding the final round would provide a larger "sample size" for determining the champion, helping to ensure that the sport's best drivers are fairly represented and reducing the randomness of surprise winners.Fellow driver Denny Hamlin has shared similar sentiments, arguing that the current format doesn't consistently reward season-long performance, as seen last year when Joey Logano won the championship despite finishing 15th in regular season standings."I just feel like that change is coming. If I had to guess we're looking at probably a three or four race round to decide the title. No matter how it's won, it's won, but I think we can all agree that there's not a perfect system. There never will be a perfect playoff format, never. But we all do think that there needs to be a little bit bigger of a sample size of final races for that final round. And I think that's probably what we're going to get," he said on his podcast.Dale Earnhardt Jr. also defended Logano’s championship win, stressing that calls for change do not diminish the achievements of current champions.