Dale Earnhardt Jr. offers NASCAR praise, but pointed criticism following New Hampshire

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was among the many watching at home who were confused by NASCAR‘s decision to put this past Sunday’s race at New Hampshire under a red flag with 82 laps to go.

Light rain had begun to fall yes, but NASCAR brought Goodyear wet weather tires to New Hampshire knowing it would likely be dealing with weather. Instead of getting some laps in on the wet weather tires, NASCAR waited until the more severe weather came through and passed before getting back to racing.

Earnhardt, speaking on the “Dale Jr. Download” this week, spoke out against NASCAR for not getting some laps in as it lightly precipitated. He does, feel, however that their handling of the race after that was perfectly executed.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. evaluates NASCAR’s handling of race at New Hampshire

“There eventually did come a very heavy rain that they expected,” Earnhardt said. “… If you knew the rain was coming, was it better to sit there those 30 minutes and wait for that rain to come? Or could have we been out on the track pacing. And maybe running a couple green flag laps and seeing if the rain missed us or whatever? I’m not sure. I think we might’ve been able to have some cars on the track during that half hour that we waited for the heavy rain to finally get there.

“But from that moment on, I thought NASCAR handled everything perfectly fine. I do have some questions about why they allowed everybody to fuel their cars. I was kinda curious about that. Because to Denny Hamlin’s point on his podcast, you had a lot of guys who were in a bad, tough situation that got bailed out by NASCAR allowing everyone to fuel their cars on pit road. That was probably a decision made out of safety by NASCAR. I think they should absolutely prioritize safety. But it certainly stunk if you were sitting there with an advantage fuel wise. While others were at a disadvantage in front of you.”

The green flag finally fell after a two-hour and 15-minute delay and with the field using the wet weather tires. Earnhardt believes NASCAR needs to a better job explaining to its fanbase what the tire is used for.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sees disconnect between NASCAR, fans

“The tires — there’s a little bit of a disconnect I believe between what NASCAR knows about the tire and it’s capabilities and what the fan at home knows about the tire and its capabilities,” Earnhardt said. “NASCAR, I think — I don’t wanna say could do a better job. Because that’s not really the truth. Or what I wanna convey. But before this race starts, maybe it would be good to have like a clear understanding of why the tires are there, what it will be used exactly for and not used for.

“That coincides with the fans’ eagerness for NASCAR to continue to embrace racing in bad weather or in wet conditions. The fans, NASCAR, everybody’s sort of pushing in this direction to get to where we do finally leave all that in the teams’ hands. Race is gonna start, if it rains, it rains, you’re on your own. That’s where we wanna be. NASCAR will admit that that’s where they want to be. They don’t love being in the situation of having to control the race in such a way. They want to turn it over to the teams.

“And I think there’s just some hesitation on that part because we can have a disaster. If they turn it over to the teams and it goes bad, everybody’s gonna blame NASCAR, not the teams. ‘What’d you do that for NASCAR? They should’ve known better, they should’ve seen that coming.’ We all are perfectly experts in hindsight. So, while I’m sitting there watching the race, I’m not at the racetrack. I don’t see umbrellas during the interviews, drivers are out in the pits getting interviewed during this break. We had 30 minutes of what I thought was relatively clear weather, dry weather. The track is wet. But I thought they could’ve had cars out there pacing to get it to a point where they could drop the green flag with the wet weather tire.”

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