Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains mentality of ownership in intense playoff battle ahead of Martinsville

Dale Earnhardt Jr. provided some insight into a team owner’s perspective heading into an all-important weekend at Martinsville Speedway for both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series Playoffs.

While Earnhardt believes Sunday’s Cup Series race will be a wild battle, the Xfinity Series iteration on Saturday will, as well. Of course, Earnhardt has more at stake due to JR Motorsports, and while he recognizes it might not work out for his entire team, he wants his wheelmen to leave nothing to chance, throwing caution to the wind.

“Saturday will be more than we want,” Earnhardt joked, regarding the intensity at Martinsville, via The Dale Jr Download. “I know that very well, with a couple cars. I’ve got a couple cars in the mix. … This also goes along the lines of what I was talking about with Chase Elliott and his attitude, or a driver’s attitude going into these final few races.

“As an owner, a lot of times, we get into these positions and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Alright, let’s just not create — let’s just not be clowns. Let’s just not do — hopefully somebody doesn’t do something that’s just totally ridiculous.'”

Evidently, Earnhardt recognizes he has to let loose a bit in these situations as an owner, and while he doesn’t want his drivers making ridiculous decisions, it might be worth it if they’re able to clinch a spot in the Championship 4.

“Let’s take what we’re talking about with the Cup drivers and flip it over to the Xfinity side and on the owner’s point of view,” the NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee said. “So, a couple weeks ago, usually with my drivers, I’m like, ‘Y’all just try to win and not do stupid stuff.’ I don’t, you know, we go to Daytona and wreck four damn race cars out of the front of the field when we’re sitting there running second, third, and fourth with, second, third, fourth, fifth with 20 laps to go. S*** like that. A couple years ago we did that. I was so pissed off. So, you know, let’s just not be clowns. Let’s be great. And if you can’t be great, be smart. A couple weeks ago, we got, you know, we got pulled out of line and we got a spanking because our rear-clip was bent on the No. 1 car at Talladega, right? We filed the appeal, felt good about it, worked really hard, felt like we had a great argument, and we lost.

“So, I told Sam Mayer, I said, ‘Dude, you go, they just wrote — they just wrote our pass. You go to the Roval, I don’t care what you do. I don’t care who you drive through. You go out there, it’s a bar fight now,’ I was like, ‘You go out there and you just win. I don’t care how you have to do it. You’ve got a pass, they put us in this position, it’s on. Carnage, man.’ I felt like I — I didn’t know if I was making a mistake there. I mean, he was gonna do what he wanted to do anyways, but I just kinda changed my attitude about it. I was like, ‘I really don’t care if we look like clowns or what everybody’s opinion is of whatever we do, however this falls out.’ He goes out there and makes a textbook freaking pass and wins the race sharp as hell. … I’ll be honest, I mean, for Sam, that was a great — that was a very mature approach to the end of that race. He had every right, and I gave him every right, to bowl through them boys, knock them out.

“Maybe I shouldn’t worry about whose feelings we hurt, who’s angry at us when it’s all said and done. Do whatever you gotta do. Martinsville is an elimination race in the round before the finals. It’s a recipe for freaking disaster, so let’s be part of the disaster.”

That’s a line that every JR Motorsports driver will love to hear from their team owner. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is ripping the bandaid off and letting his wheelmen get after it at Martinsville this weekend, and it’ll only add to what’s going to be an intense race for the Xfinity Series.