Dale Earnhardt Jr. lays blame for Martinsville controversy at feet of everyone in NASCAR, calls for change

Dale Earnhardt Jr. called out all of NASCAR collectively for what transpired over the weekend at Martinsville Speedway.

Race manipulation has been the name of the game, as William Byron and Christopher Bell both looked to secure the final spot in the Championship 4, it seemed as if Chevrolet and Toyota engaged is some nasty tactics. They enlisted the help of Austin Dillon, Ross Chastain and Bubba Wallace, and the trio have been punished over recent days.

It wasn’t a good look for NASCAR, and Earnhardt believes it’s up to everyone in the sport to ensure something like that doesn’t happen again. The integrity of NASCAR took a hit over the weekend that was in Virginia, and the veteran wheelman wants to put an end to it.

“I will say this, man. I was thinking about this this morning. Everybody in this sport, everyone in this sport has a responsibility to maintain and uphold the integrity of the sport. But, some of us fell a little short this past weekend,” Earnhardt stated, via The Dale Jr Download. “It happens, and it’s not new. It’s happened before, and it may happen again. Jeff Gluck thinks that this wasn’t a big enough deterrent. He says, we’ll see it again. … I really only have one real thought about this. At this point, the fines are here. This is what we’re going to go forward with. We can argue what should have happened or what we might have done.

“But when we look back, we mentioned on Tuesday’s show some other scenarios where there was manipulation, this isn’t a new thing. This isn’t a new thing at Martinsville. This has happened on the plate tracks for a handful of years. Teams organizing and working together and even practicing together. We literally would say, ‘Don’t pull off pit road if a Ford or a Toyota is in our line,’ and they would get in our line and go, ‘Man, I’m going to go out with the Chevys,’ and we would sit there and not pull off pit road until they would get with their group. It was silly.

“So we all, and when I say we all, collectively, us here in this room, podcasters, content creators, team owners, manufacturers, NASCAR, race control, everyone involved has some responsibility to uphold the integrity of our sport. Some of us failed, and it happens.”

Moving forward, Earnhardt believes NASCAR has a responsibility to deliver clean, fair and hard racing to their fans, with no questions of legitimacy. That’s how you put what happened with Martinsville in the past.

“I think going forward, we all have to really understand how delicate that credibility and legitimacy is to our fans, right? They expect to tune in and see something fair and ran accordingly. So when it doesn’t really go that way, it’s frustrating and disappointing,” Earnhardt added. “We can’t continue to do those things. We can’t continue to utilize that type of strategy or whatever you may have. So, I mean, it really needs to get back to — this should always be about dropping the green flag, racing to the checkered flag in its purest form.

“We won’t always hit that mark. But that’s why this all exists in the first place, right? When we try to get cute and try to take, you know, try to take liberties with certain situations, it can bite us in the ass a little bit. I think that’s just a lesson we were learning.”

Per usual, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hit the nail on the head as it pertains to the situation this past weekend in the NASCAR Cup Series, and how the sport should move forward. Hopefully the drivers, decision-makers and everyone in-between will take the advice of the Hall of Fame inductee moving forward.