Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to race manipulation talk after Charlotte, NASCAR policing driver points knowledge

In this past Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Round of 12 finale at the Charlotte ROVAL, several drivers took part in what could have been deemed race manipulation. NASCAR reviewed two cases of potential race manipulation involving Cole Custer and Alex Bowman but found nothing that rose to the level of a penalty.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw zero issue with what either driver did at the ROVAL. As long as it doesn’t become “egregious,” Earnhardt doesn’t believe NASCAR should hand out penalties for race manipulation.

“I have zero problem with any spotter saying, ‘Here’s the points situation.’ Honestly, there’s all these videos of was Cole Custer not trying to pass the 22, was Bowman not trying to race the 1 — who cares. At this point, who cares,” Earnhardt said on Tuesday’s Dale Jr. Download. “I guess as long as it ain’t super egregious or guys coming down pit road just to blow their own race and get off the track or a guy spinning out on purpose.

“Spin-gate from back in the day, that was an obvious thing. They did the detective work on it, the CSI got the radio calls and all that and they added it up and said, ‘that’s bullsh*t,’ and I think everyone would agree. This stuff here is just what happens.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: NASCAR ‘can’t police it’

Beyond Custer and Bowman, Denny Hamlin said he was driving blind to the points battle going on between Joey Logano and Ross Chastain on the final lap. Nobody from Hamlin’s No. 11 team notified him that Chastain had a one-point advantage over Logano for the final transfer spot into the Round of 8.

At the time, Hamlin was the first car driving behind Chastain. Logano owned the tiebreaker over Chastain so once Hamlin made the pass, that was it for Chastain, who ended up taking Hamlin out on the last corner in a last-ditch effort.

Earnhardt said that Hamlin’s team should have been able to inform him of the situation. He doesn’t think it’s something NASCAR can truly police.

“He should. Give me the information and let me choose. … You can’t police it because there’s conversations that happen during the week,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know that this happened but let’s just imagine all the guys in the Chevrolet world probably had some conversation at some point about what the situation was with each Chevrolet driver in the playoffs. You can’t police this stuff, so it doesn’t bother me. As long as it doesn’t get to that egregious point where it’s obvious and they’re just like, ‘Hey, don’t pass this guy, get behind this guy. Hey, come on down pit road.’

“… If it feels like sh*t, it’s sh*t. If it feels awful, it’s awful. Honestly, I feel like this is one of those deals where people are going to have to lay back and let the person that’s in charge of this, it’s probably a group conversation at NASCAR, when they get back on Monday and they read all the script and see what every spotter said, they probably all get together with about a handful of people in the room and go, ‘Do we hate this or don’t we?’ We just got to live with their interpretation of was this too much, and I’m OK with that. There’s no clear way to make sure this is cut and dry and black and white.”