“I’d Be Suspended”: Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s Former Crew Chief on the State of NASCAR Today

Arguably, NASCAR hasn’t seen many crew chiefs as great as Larry McReynolds, the man behind the great Dale Earnhardt’s only Daytona 500 win. But wouldn’t it appear weird if such a great man admits that he is thankful of not being a crew chief anymore?

Minutes into an episode of The Kenny Conversation, fans witnessed the legendary crew chief illuminating how the team owners of today were eating themselves up while trying to tweak the components of their cars to squeeze out significant performance advantages here and there.

“The owners tow NASCAR,” said Larry Mac. “If you’re gonna put us through the workload and the cost of completely building a brand new car, obsoleting everything they had, save us from ourselves. Don’t let us tinker.”

“We still got a big toolbox to work with. There’s adjustments of plenty on this car, maybe not as big as the toolbox was on the old car,” he added. He then proceeded to explain that had he been a crew chief still, NASCAR would perhaps keep him out of the tracks almost all the time.

He joked, “Thank the good lord I’m a broadcaster, not a crew chief; I’d be eaten out of a trash can. I’d probably never be at the racetrack, I’d be suspended and indefinitely forever.”

Needless to say, Kenny Wallace burst out into laughter at McReynolds’ humor.

NASCAR has strived hard to make the field fair and square for every driver out there. However, there have been instances when the teams made certain adjustments to the components of their cars to leverage certain aerodynamic benefits.

But NASCAR never lets it slide.

Some of NASCAR’s severest penalties of late

Just earlier this year, Hendrick Motorsports got slammed with what can be called the costliest penalty of all time. NASCAR found the team modifying air deflecting pieces and hence, docked every Phoenix driver in the team of 100 regular season points and 10 playoff points. Moreover, the four crew chiefs were suspended for four races and fined a whopping $100,000 each.

Last year, even RFK Racing fell prey to NASCAR’s strict radar. Brad Keselowski was the first driver to be penalized last season for modifying a single source part viz. the tail panel. As a result, he too, lost 100 driver and owner points, besides 10 playoff points. Crew chief Matt McCall was suspended for 4 races and had to pay $100,000 as a fine.

Last year at Pocono, Joe Gibbs Racing faced a penalty for adding a piece of transparent tape to the front fascia. Owing to the penalty, the top two finishers, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were removed from their positions and as a result, Chase Elliott was pushed up to the winner’s throne.