Dale Earnhardt Jr. annoyed with some NASCAR fans after Clash: 'This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherf**ker'

The NASCAR weekend at Bowman Gray seemed to be a smashing success by most accounts. But not by all, it would seem.

In fact, it was long-time driver turned analyst Dale Earnhardt Jr. who opened up on some of the complaints stemming from the Cook Out Clash on Sunday. Suffice it to say, Earnhardt does NOT agree with the complaints.

“So the race is happening. I’ve got me and you were in a group text with some friends, right?” Earnhardt said to his cohost on the Dale Jr. Download podcast. “These are friends that have been race fans for years. Years. And I was really surprised by the reaction that they had, and I tend to take these little examples and assume that this is not just isolated to this text message. Maybe there’s a lot of people that feel this way.

“Now I know there were a lot of people that loved what they saw. But I know there were some people that were a little bit shocked. They were saying that it was too rough. Too rough. Too many laps. It took too long to run the last chance race.”

That’s a fair enough critique on the surface. There were at least a half-dozen NASCAR cautions that came out in the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ), causing it to really drag out.

But the point lost steam for Earnhardt when the complaints following the main event also started to fly in.

“Then you got what you wanted, I guess, in the main event because the majority of the back half of the main event was nothing but just green flag laps and cars just kind of (going),” he said.

The criticisms shifted. First it was too rough from NASCAR, now it was too boring.

“What the f**k do you want?” Earnhardt pleaded. “This ain’t walking in and have it your way, motherf**ker. All right? This ain’t Burger King.”

NASCAR, of course, has very little to do with any of it. The organization can help set the tone for events based on the factors in play at the track — tires available, location of barriers, etc. — but it can’t really control how things shake out on race day.

Earnhardt further vented his frustration.

“I am so annoyed,” he said. “This was like the perfect example of, ‘Oh, I don’t like that’ and that’s like the two extremes happening in the very same weekend. And both the same group of people complained about how silly the last chance race was and how boring the back half of the feature was. I’m like, gah man, can’t win. You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

Unsure how to root for NASCAR events? Well, Earndhardt has that problem solved too.

“Be like me, all right? Be like me,” he said, a bit tongue in cheek. “Let me tell you, be like me. I didn’t love the main event. I wanted them to be more physical. I wanted that. They weren’t. But I’m not going to poopoo on the whole thing because I didn’t get exactly what I wanted in the main event.”