Dale Earnhardt Jr. criticizes NASCAR over calling, not calling cautions

The first Cup Series race ever at Iowa Speedway was enjoyable. Dale Earnhardt Jr. still has a problem with how NASCAR is calling cautions. In the four decades Earnhardt has been a fan, driver, and team owner, he’s seen it all from NASCAR.

Consistency. That is what fans and drivers want from the sanctioning body. From penalties to caution flags and everything in between. Do what you are going to do, but make sure that things are consistent week in and out.

At Iowa Speedway, multiple drivers hit the wall with flat tires. It was part of the challenge in the race. Many went without incident and limped to pit road, leaving the race to run green. However, a late caution was called when Daniel Hemric hit the wall.

It was much like other incidents throughout the race. A little love tap and then he was fine. It was enough to drive Christopher Bell’s crew chief Adam Stevens wild.

“That’s frustrating but it’s nothing new, you know?” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said on his podcast. “It’s every other week. And they’ll, it’s every other week and it depends, it’s dependent oddly on the point of the race.”

The Dale Jr. Download host continued in his small rant.

“They don’t want to call a caution during the cycle. They don’t. So, because instead of one crew chief yelling at them, they’ve got 10 or 15 yelling at them,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained. “NASCAR doesn’t want to cause a caution or call a caution in the middle of the cycle because I imagine they just want the cycle to complete if it can, to not throw a big monkey wrench into a lot of strategies or favor a team that’s taken… But I don’t look at it that way. I don’t love that mentality, I don’t love the way we look at yellows and why and when they should be thrown. I feel like that, you know, if it’s lap 25 or 10 to go, a caution is a caution.

“In my mind, I’ve got an idea, you know, if a car brushes the wall like Hemric did, or remember at Richmond with Kyle Busch. That ain’t a yellow, man. Not a yellow. Never a yellow. And we ought to calm down and not throw it. In my mind, if I’m, I’ve been watching racing and this sport since the early 80s, the way they throw yellows has always changed every probably 10 years or so. In the 70s and 80s man it took a lot to get a yellow flag. It took a lot. It was a crash, you know? Cars crashed on the track. Someone brushing the wall, no, never got a yellow.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is right. NASCAR has to be consistent when it comes to throwing yellow flags. Even if you mess up a pit cycle, that is part of Cup Series racing. If NASCAR does not want to do that, complaints from teams and fans will continue.