“Have to Set an Example”: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Draws a Hard Line of Tolerance in Venture Co-owned With Kevin Harvick

The Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick co-owned racing venture saw some unsportsmanlike behavior last season with an all-out brawl erupting on the racetrack being the highlight. The incident took place last month at Tri-County Motor Speedway between a bunch of crew members and drivers after a last-lap wreck. But recently, while speaking with the press, Junior shared where he drew the line to ensure such an ill reputation does not plague his series ever again.

He stated, “You kinda have to let your competitors, and especially your crew members. These are all volunteers they come to… Help their buddies get through the race weekend. You just have to set an example every time that this is not going to be something that we are gonna put up with and you have to do it quickly, right?”

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr on CARS Tour’s responsibility to clean up some of the excessive fighting in short track racing

They have an automatic one week suspension policy for fighting and intentional crashing pic.twitter.com/tjcGLB2jSV

— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) November 27, 2023

“We had a couple of instances this year… Me and the other guys in the ownership group were on the phone together immediately. We gotta do the right thing here. What is the right thing? How do we make sure we send the right message?”

He added, “It’s tough because you got relationships with all of these people… You have to make sure that every situation is handled the same, everybody is treated equally.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. says some tough decisions need to be made to set an example

Speaking further, Junior mentioned how this one time the driver being suspended was from his team. But in order to make sure that the punishments were equally handed out, he agreed with the decision and spoke with his drivers about not repeating such an on-track incident.

He mentioned, “Now that I have some influence on those types of calls and decisions, you have to unfortunately do some difficult things and make some tough decisions. Hopefully, the parties concerned can understand why you had to do that.”

Since the Hall of Famer holds significant influence within the series, it is important that he sends the right message by not protecting his drivers from the rules when it is being enforced on everybody else.

This move set a good example on Junior’s part, setting the message clear to everyone that if they do wrong, there will be a consequence.