Dale Earnhardt Jr., despite being retired for years, is still an influential voice in NASCAR. He shares that voice weekly on his “Dale Jr. Download” podcast.
On this week’s episode, the NASCAR Hall of Famer talked about the weekend at Texas, including JR Motorsports driver Carson Kvapil hitting the infield grass just past the start-finish line and effectively ruining his day in an incident similar to what Junior experienced on the 1.5-mile track in 2014.
While some fans suggested that track owner Speedway Motorsports Inc. might consider changing that area in the future, Earnhardt said no such change would be necessary.
However, the 50-year-old revealed he is very much open to change in another area when talking about a different incident with another one of his JRM drivers, Justin Allgaier, who had a dominant car and led a race-high 99 laps but saw his race come to an end in the third stage when he ran into the back of the lapped car driven by Kris Wright.
“Look, if our car doesn’t run into Kris, I got no problem at all,” Earnhardt admitted. “Only reason why I’m even a bit upset about it is because it was our guy that got involved in it. But for years there’s been slow independents out there grinding away on the racetrack. They always knew where to be.
“That’s something this guy needs to figure out is like, ‘Hey man, where am I supposed to go to give the other guys the best chance to get around me?’ He didn’t choose this properly at this particular point. Hopefully next time he does. A lot of other people got around him just fine.
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“I’m not gonna give the guy a ton of [expletive]. What I can say is and I’ve had this problem for a long time back even when I was way early in my own driving career, the minimum speed rule is not worth anything. The minimum speed rule is egregiously lenient. It’s ridiculous.
“I don’t like using the word joke because I don’t like – that’s a hot take, a trigger word that it’s insulting a bit when you use it talking about the governing body and things that we’re doing in the sport. I hate using that word and so I hesitate to use it. The minimum speed rule and if you look at what minimum speed is at all these racetracks it is ridiculous. It is ridiculous and it should be a much more tougher thing to achieve.”
Related: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Doesn’t Sugarcoat Feelings on Proposed Idea for a Change at Bristol
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