Dale Earnhardt Jr.: No. 8 team won't blame Parker Retzlaff for pushing Harrison Burton at Daytona
Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes Richard Childress Racing and Kyle Busch’s No. 8 team won’t be too happy with Parker Retzlaff for pushing Harrison Burton to the win in Daytona, but they’ll eventually get over it.
As it stands, Retzlaff isn’t exactly the most popular driver in the RCR and Chevrolet camp. Busch had a shot to lock himself into the playoffs with his first win of the season, but Retzlaff gave Burton a monster push coming to the final turn, and it was enough to get the No. 21 to Victory Lane.
On the latest episode of The Dale Jr Download, Earnhardt Jr. elaborated on why Retzlaff will receive some flack for the move from the No. 8 team, but he shouldn’t let it get to him — it was the only thing to do in that situation.
“At the end, when it comes down to, like, 20 to go, I’m very singular, very selfish. I’m trying to win the race, and if I’m trying to help you win the race, I ain’t — I’m not doing what I’m supposed to do. So, I like what Parker did,” Earnhardt Jr. stated. “I think he was truly just trying to put himself in position to get a win. So, I don’t have a real problem with it.
“I know that, you know, you go home after the race. The No. 8 team, they’re not going to be big Parker fans. They’re gonna, you know, do a little bit of grumbling in the shop, a little bit of grumbling in the office. Some of the management might be disappointed. But when we get on down the road, right, they’re not gonna look back on this and go, ‘That Parker screwed us. That Parker ruined our season. That Parker,’ they’re gonna go, ‘You know what, Parker did a pretty good job at that race.’
“They’re not going to — he’s not going to get less opportunities, if it’s with RCR, because of that. They’re going to — they’re going to go, ‘Hey, all right, you made that choice. Didn’t love it. This is what I would do. We’ll sit down, we’ll talk about it. I was expecting this. I was expecting this from you, Parker,’ but he’s a good little racer. He didn’t kill his career at Daytona.”
Parker Retzlaff was simply trying to win his first career NASCAR Cup Series race, and doing all he could to get to Victory Lane. In the end, it didn’t work out for Kyle Busch, but you can’t rip his strategy apart when he had his sights set on the checkered flag.