Dale Earnhardt Jr. shuts down NASCAR overtime controversy: 'You should blame Austin Cindric'

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not ready for NASCAR to make changes to its overtime rules despite what happened in Nashville this past weekend. On the latest episode of Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt said the five overtimes that happened at Nashville Superspeedway are very rare in NASCAR.

“There’s been a ton of conversation on social media about the five overtime attempts, is that something we need to have out there as a possibility? Should they change that? Just talking in circles about all of that,” Earnhardt said. “I think it’s a big waste of time. This isn’t happening every single week. This is a rare situation where a car spins out with two laps to go the entire field list about every week is pushing themselves on fuel mileage.

That created a lot of the problems on the restart attempts with cars not able to accelerate, cars out of fuel. That created a bunch of our problems in the overtime attempts that we had, so this was sort of a perfect storm. I don’t think we need to react at all. I don’t think there needs to be any change. Nothing.”

Why Dale Earnhardt Jr. is blaming Austin Cindric for the five overtimes

Earnhardt went on to blame Austin Cindric for the five overtimes. “If there’s anything about it that you were upset with, you should blame Austin Cindric,” Earnhardt said. “Austin Cindric is running a 400-mile race and spun out on the back straightaway with two laps to go. A Cup Series regular, one of the best race car drivers, one of the best oval racers in the country wrecked off of Turn 2 with two laps to go in a 400-mile race.

“That’s like the UPS guy or the Amazon or Fed Ex guy, you know you buy something ships all the way across the country, and the guy throws it at the front porch and breaks it. …What in the hell? Austin Cindric, it’s on you buddy. All that stuff that happened at the end was entirely unnecessary. …He goes way down the track and spins out to the right. I don’t know how you do that. That’s what led to all of this. None of this happens if Austin can get off Turn 2 like he did for 398 miles.

When it was all said and done, Joey Logano won the five-overtime race in Nashville to clinch a spot in the playoffs. And despite the issues at the end of the race, Cindric, who also clinched a playoff spot, finished 15th on Sunday.