“I Knew What Happened”: Dale Earnhardt Jr. And Robin Pemberton Revisit Michael Waltrip Racing’s Infamous ‘Spingate’ Scandal

The “Spingate” cheating scandal is one of the most defining moments of NASCAR’s long history. The scam involved several members of Michael Waltrip Racing and eventually led to the team’s demise. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and NASCAR’s former vice president of competition, Robin Pemberton, who played key roles in this story, have now revisited it over a decade later.

During a conversation they had on the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Pemberton revealed that neither the teams nor the fans understood at the time that the sanctioning body recorded every single word that was said on the radios. He went on to narrate how Mike Helton, NASCAR’s president at the time, had called him early in the morning after the 2013 race at Richmond to keep him in the loop.

The phone call led to him being on an airplane to Chicago the next Monday for media week. “I think I was by myself,” Pemberton said. “They just put me up there. I was in a room bigger than this room. They rented for me. The TV people came in and they replayed stuff and replayed stuff. Listened to all the radio transmissions. All that stuff.”

The scouring of the footage had confirmed that they were all looking at a clear case of race fixing. He continued, “What they didn’t understand and they had no reason to understand was that we were right in the middle of negotiations for FanDuel and betting on games and whatever. That’s the worst thing you could do at the worst time.”

Junior’s part in this came as an unassuming competitor. He had been right behind Clint Bowyer when the driver intentionally spun to give up a spot to his teammate, Martin Truex Jr. Having the keen eyes that he does, he had immediately called that Bowyer was doing something off the books. He is still sure of what he saw and of his quick verdict.

He laughed, “I was right behind him when he spun himself out. I knew what happened.” All the investigations finally led to Truex Jr. being kicked out of the playoffs, and the Chase being expanded to include 13 drivers. Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon, the drivers who’d been impacted the most because of the fixing, were allowed inside the bracket through this.

A record-breaking penalty of $300,000 was levied on Michael Waltrip Racing, a fine that broke the financial backbone of the organization and left it crippled. Sponsors left too, not wanting to be associated with the team, and it shut down two years later.