Dale Earnhardt Jr. gives heated reaction to Martin Truex Jr. on state of NASCAR racing

Earlier during this season’s iteration of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, Martin Truex Jr. took a shot at Kyle Larson and the rest of his peers while describing the current state of the sport he’s soon walking away from.

“It’s just crazy that all these races always come down to this,” Truex said, regarding the finish of September’s race at Watkins-Glen. “I don’t really understand how guys can call their self the best in the world when they just drive through everyone on restarts at the end of these races. It’s very frustrating but it is what it is these days, so I’m out of here.”

Afterwards, NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee and Xfinity Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave his thoughts on his longtime friend’s comments, echoing his concerns about the aggression level shown throughout all of NASCAR, and even racing as a whole, including at the grassroots level.

“I hear what he’s saying. I do agree — in the Cup level, at the end of that race, super aggressive. If you drop down, Xfinity, Truck, it just gets so much worse. We’re seeing quite a bit of that happening now, at the late-model stock and the grassroots level. There’s more aggression, more physical contact, more pushing and shoving. Drivers are getting more brazen, less respectful. That’s all true, and that’s troubling, concerning, to a point,” Earnhardt Jr. responded, via the Dale Jr. Download. “But if I’m a driver, I hate it. I’m like, ‘I don’t like being disrespected. I want somebody to give me a chance to make a corner.’ If I’m the owner, I’m certainly pissed off too, because I can’t control the car, can’t drive it. I feel even (more) helpless. But as a series owner or as a fan — maybe some fans don’t love this, but I think, for me, I love the aggression, I love the contact. I love a guy — I love there being people in the field that will put your ass in the wall.

“I might not pull for them. I might think they’re a bad human being, because they make those decisions, but I like what it does to the drama. I like drama. I want to see if this other guy is going to come back and redeem himself, get the other guy back. Will this create a rivalry? whatever, right? We need all those things. Those ingredients are important, as fans. As a series owner, you want to see the aggression, but you want it to stop at a certain level. You don’t want it to continue to escalate. That’s what I think I’m only concerned about, is that we’ve seen a rise in the lack of respect, and guys just basically just driving through each other at the ends of these races, and it seems to be ramping up.”

Regardless, Earnhardt doesn’t believe he has the answer to the question of how you curb driver’s aggression levels during the race, but he’s of the belief that we’re reaching an inflection point, and it’s time to ensure it doesn’t go too much further.

“There’s not an end to this conversation or any kind of a button, but I’m just saying that I’m a bit concerned how the aggression is just ratcheting up,” Earnhardt added. “It’s good — some of this is good, but too much of this is bad. Too much of this is foolish and unproductive and unprofessional.

“So, we’ll just have to watch and see where it goes from here. This is the part of the year, especially in the playoffs, where anything goes.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr: NASCAR drivers’ aggression level can be ‘a little classless, embarrassing’

Moreover, Earnhardt cited the reaction from drivers who made their name in foreign disciplines as something that should be a rude awakening for many in the NASCAR world.

“When the IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) guys come and run with us or the other, you know, other guys come from other disciplines — SVG and all of them, they come in there and they’re like, ‘Holy crap,’ like, ‘Wow.’ You know, that’s — it’s a little classless. It’s a little embarrassing,” the former Daytona 500 winner stated. “You want some of it, though. You want them to come into the series and get pushed around, but you don’t want the whole field looking like a bunch of buffoons going in the corner.”

In the end, it makes an already expensive venture that much more difficult to get into, slimming down the talent pool for the Cup Series considerably.

“It’s crazy. We would walk in here two years ago, and they would be tearing the cars down, and you could walk around them and go, ‘Yeah, all that’s going to buff out. And now, we’re not. Now you walk in here and they’re all missing giant chunks of the overall body because all the shit tore up and it’s in the garbage,” Earnhardt delineated. “So we’ve got a big pile out in the back that used to not be there (full) of fenders, noses, hoods, all the shit — just busted up. It’s because of the lack of respect. All that happens, mostly at the end of the race.

“… I guess my point is, it’s like — it’s 15 to 20% more expensive to race at the grassroots level, in most cases, because of the aggressive nature of the racing that has changed a little bit over the last couple of years. And it’s no different —Trucks, Xfinity, it’s gotten more expensive.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has seen the change in NASCAR that Martin Truex Jr. alluded to, and he doesn’t appreciate where it’s going. Time will tell if the decision-makers decide to add some limitations, or if the aggressive driving epidemic becomes a long-term problem in the sport.