Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Dale Earnhardt Jr. offers frank assessment on recent issues, NASCAR’s reaction and potential impact

1kknG8ruZUc8
Based on the recent trend of retaliating on the racetrack, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is worried younger drivers will think it's OK to smash an opponent because they feel they were wronged.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. questions what type of message NASCAR could be sending if it doesn’t further penalize Austin Dillon a week after not punishing Kyle Busch for swinging at Joey Logano.

Earnhardt made his comments Tuesday on his podcast, the Dale Jr. Download.

Earnhardt spent about 10 minutes on the topic, which branched out to how he would punish Dillon and NASCAR’s fluid enforcement of such issues through the years.

NASCAR parked Dillon after he pinned Cole Custer’s car against the wall in last weekend’s Xfinity race at Phoenix Raceway. Dillon retaliated for contact by Custer that wrecked Dillon. Custer apologized on the radio afterward and on social media. NASCAR is expected to reveal Wednesday if there will be any other penalties with the incident.

“This isn’t nothing against Austin or Kyle for that matter,’’ Earnhardt said on his podcast. “The only thing that I worry about really isn’t what the fans think about the penalties or to penalize or not to penalize, (or) whether the sponsors have a problem with their car getting penalized or not penalized, what I worry about is what do you want to happen in the future? Like next week, six months from now, a year from now.

“How do you want the next guy, the next driver that is in this situation, that is in Austin’s position, how do you want that driver to react? Do you want him to think that it’s OK to smash into this car?’’

A point that Earnhardt made in his podcast is that Custer is competing for the Xfinity points title, while Dillon is not.

VIDEO: When will Dale Jr. break his winless streak?

“Austin is a Cup regular in a series that is a privilege for the Cup regulars to run in,’’ Earnhardt said. “They’re limiting the opportunity for the Cup regulars in that series. It’s a privilege to be in that series, and I have an opportunity to run in it, so running into one of the regulars, I know you’re mad, should have probably punched him. Just don’t run into him.

“If punching is OK, obviously going and punching or karate chopping or karate kicking or roundhouse kicking somebody on pit road is fair game, but smashing into their car on the race track in between the flags has never been good.’’

Earnhardt’s comment was in reference to Busch’s actions after the Las Vegas Cup race earlier this month. After contact from Logano caused Busch to spin and go from a likely top-five result to a 22nd-place finish, Busch walked up pit road to Logano and swung at the driver.

Earnhardt also worries that if series officials allow drivers to be more confrontational, how that might impact younger drivers racing elsewhere with dreams of competing in NASCAR.

“These kids that drive these (Late Model) cars are usually as young as 13 years old, right?’’ Earnhardt said on his podcast. “Incredibly impressionable. If they’re seeing this on TV on Saturday and Sunday, they’re going to take that into their mind thinking that is how you do it, that’s OK, that’s acceptable. We don’t want these kids growing up with that mindset that, yeah man, I’m going to smash into this guy because I felt he wronged me.’’

Read more on Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt also said he would have a unique penalty for Dillon.

“You don’t have to go overboard on fines,’’ Earnhardt said. “Parking Austin wasn’t the thing to do. I would have probably fined him $5,000 and made him go do an appearance for an Xfinity race. Make him think about it during his out-of-market appearance promoting another Xfinity race, maybe next time he won’t do this. Plus, you get some free marketing out of it. You got a driver on the clock promoting the next race for free. It’s good for everybody.’’

If nothing else, Earnhardt said some sort of penalty would be good.

“Even if it is a slap on the wrist, at least it is sending a message that we really don’t want this to happen,’’ Earnhardt said. “I talked to NASCAR a little bit about this. Their position is that they don’t want a bunch of buddies out there racing around. They don’t want everybody all friendly and letting each other go and slapping each other on the back and all that stuff to the finish line. They want personalities. They want drama, but I think the drama belongs in between the flags.’’

But how NASCAR oversees the drivers has changed through the years, he admits.

“It seems like the sport goes through this ebb and flow of we’re going to let them have at it and let them do whatever they want, and then they flow into a couple of years of we’re going to penalize everything, we’re going to have a six-tier penalty system … and then it flows back to there’s too many penalties, we’re just going to let them do whatever they want to do.

“We keep cycling in and out of that, and we can’t really find some sort of happy, consistent medium. I don’t know. I’m disappointed when I see what happened with Kyle and Joey, and if Austin and all those guys, if some sort of repercussion isn’t delivered. It’s just disappointing.’’

Go here to listen Earnhardt’s podcast, which covers several other topics.

Follow @dustinlong and on Facebook