While a big part of the NASCAR community is holding assumptions and ideas of trouble in paradise brewing at Hendrick Motorsports after the Kansas incident between Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, former Hendrick driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t surprised. Because, according to the Hall of Famer, these kinds of things aren’t new to Rick Hendrick’s team.
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In fact, Earnhardt gave a couple of examples where teammates at HMS didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye. One of those examples had two of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history, sharing 11 championships between them.
Earnhardt uses Johnson-Gordon example to make his point about Larson-Elliott
During a recent episode of his podcast show, Earnhardt emphasized that teammates expressing their displeasure toward each other wasn’t a new thing at Hendrick Motorsports. He gave the example of Ricky Rudd and Ken Schrader’s incident from Martinsville, and then the example of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon on the same racetrack.
“There’s been disagreements. I know and Jimmie & Jeff had that episode as well where Jeff was pounding on the back bumper and Jeff didn’t love losing that race to Jimmie even though he owned part of the car. They sort of had a difference of opinion of how that goes down,” he said.
Earnhardt wondered if the bad blood between Larson and Elliott started from Fontana and regardless, he believed it’s okay if they don’t like each other. “We don’t see them hanging out and they don’t need to hang out,” he added.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. not interested in Elliott’s explanations of the Kansas incident
After the race at Kansas, Chase Elliott had given a rather short explanation of what he meant to do when he turned left into his teammate. Elliott outrightly and in short, denied that he was trying to send a message across, something that didn’t sit well with many, including Bubba Wallace’s spotter.
However, Earnhardt Jr. isn’t losing his sleep over what Elliott said. “I don’t care whatever Chase wants to do, whatever Chase wants to say. I don’t need Chase to tell me what happened. I don’t need Chase to tell me how he feels. I saw it. I make my own assumptions,” he said.
“And he damn sure ain’t going to be dumb enough to go, ‘I hate the guy and I ran into his a**.’ I don’t think he wants to make the situation worse.”
Junior added that the way to go would be to have a competition meeting and be around each other during the week before heading into Bristol.
