Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on the Sheldon Creed, Austin Hill drama

Dale Earnhardt Jr. watched in awe as drama transpired during Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, as Richard Childress Racing teammates Austin Hill and Sheldon Creed had some choice words for each other following the event.

To set the stage, the teammates led the field to green during the final laps of the race, and beat on each other all the way to the final corner. However, neither would win at Martinsville, as Earnhardt’s driver Justin Allgaier snuck past Creed and won by a nose.

Afterwards, Childress himself had some words for Creed, “I’ve had drivers drive for me before but nobody as stupid as Sheldon Creed,” he told NBC Sports. “You don’t do that as a team player. What else do you want me to tell you?”

Hill echoed those sentiments, and the extra layer of Creed leaving the team after next weekend’s race weighed heavy on everyone’s mind as well. After seeing what went down, Earnhardt made his thoughts known on the matter, sharing his unique perspective as an owner and former driver.

“I don’t know what you do. I was sitting there, thinking about that, talking about that, in those final handful of laps. You’ve got two sets of teammates, in there with Gibbs and RCR. You’ve got arguably two or three of those guys out of that group that have to win. What do you expect them to do? I can understand Richard or Austin or Creed’s frustration, but I mean, they were doing what they have to do to win. It’s tough,” Earnhardt told FOX’s Bob Pockrass. “The Playoffs and the elimination races and everything, it puts us in those situations that we’ve never been in before, with teammates. You’ve got a car capable of winning the race, but your teammate needs this, and another one needs that, and you can’t really go out and have an objective of your own. An agenda of your own.

“Unfortunate isn’t the right word, but it puts us in unique situations now, that we’ve never really watched people experience, or been apart of before. I wouldn’t have wanted to be Richard at the end of that deal. When we were getting ready to have that restart, I didn’t envy his position, and I certainly don’t envy it now. But I listened to Creed’s post-race interview, and I can’t argue with anything he said. He moved him. We all know, at short tracks, using the bumper, moving people out of the way is pretty much fair game. He allowed Austin a chance to race. He didn’t send him into the wall. He didn’t knock him back to sixth. He just got him up off the bottom. Both of those guys did a little bit of that all night. I didn’t see anything just obviously blatant, or ‘Man, that’s totally uncalled for,’ I didn’t see really any of that. But you’re not going to have that go on and not be frustrated either way.”

Additionally, Earnhardt recognizes that Creed’s situation with Childress added some fuel to the fire, and Saturday seemed like the boiling point.

“So you know, you’ve got a guy leaving. There’s some dynamics there. Feeling are hurt, or what have you, with Creed moving on, or Richard Childress and them moving on from Creed, however you want to look at it. Then you’ve got a driver in Austin Hill that they really believe in, and want them to be part of their long-term future. … Tough situation for them to be in. … When you put fast race-cars on the track, they’re going to run upfront and they’re going to run into each other,” Earnhardt added. “We’ve got young guys out there, trying to make a name for themselves. They’re not veterans. They’re not old teammates that have been buddies for decades. They’re young guys, that don’t really know each other that well, and they don’t have a loyalty to each other. That’s what the Xfinity Series and Truck Series are about.

“You’ve got a lot of these guys that come in and out of these cars in brief periods, and so yeah, they’re going to bounce into each other and piss each other off. … That’s just part of it.”

While it was great for our viewing pleasure, Saturday’s Xfinity Series drama had some major ramifications. Nevertheless, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is happy he got to watch it unfold from Victory Lane, as his driver certainly took advantage.