Dale Jr. tells plate racing critics to "chill"

“The weather pushed everybody to be really intense. Nobody could lay back. You didn’t know when the race was going to end,” Earnhardt told Motorsport.com in an interview on Tuesday. “You couldn’t say, ‘You know what? I’m just going to chill out for a little bit’ or ‘You know, they’re three-wide now and I’m just not going to get up into that right now.’

“That was a whole different mentality in that whole race and that’s what I think drove the intensity and the crashes. And you’re not going to have that all the time.”

No "knee-jerk reactions"

In all 35 of the 40 cars entered in the race were involved in a wreck – and several more than once.

Earnhardt, a participant in two wrecks himself in Sunday’s race, said he has been surprised by the “knee-jerk reaction” that has come after the race, in particular by some in the media. He said, however, he could relate to some of the drivers’ frustrations that were vented.

“I’m telling you, man, it’s weird. I’m surprised by it but at the same time I’ve gotten out cars after races there and been so (expletive) mad at the sport; not at what happened to me,” he said.

“I got out of there when I got my concussion. I was mad because I was concussed and I knew why. I was putting it on the sport. Like ‘This is why I got hurt – pack racing.’

“There had been a last-lap wreck for like six friggin’ plate races before that race and I’m thinking, ‘If this is plate racing then I have to be willing to wreck on the last lap or I’m going to ride around in the back.’

“So, I came back the next race there and rode in the back. Then I got criticized for riding around in the back and I was mad at myself for riding around in the back.”

Making matters worse

Having been a participant in many restrictor-plate wrecks himself and having been injured in one, Earnhardt said he understands the desire to question the current rules.

However, he believes changes made that have not been thoroughly vetted may only make matters worse. Something he said, the sport has seen before.

“In the long run, the general idea is let’s not make changes for the sake of making changes. I’m tired of changing (expletive) and not knowing what the result is going to be. We have made a lot of changes when it comes to the cars when we’re not 100 percent sure on the repercussions,” Earnhardt said.

“Indy last year would be an example. We had this whole idea we were going to have all this great passing. And we all wanted it to happen. We all really wished it would have worked.

“Same thing happened at Michigan. But it didn’t work out. A computer model told us that it was going to be great.

“So, let’s be careful about changing stuff without really understanding the repercussions. We might make it worse. We could make it worse in many ways – dull, maybe there’s more wrecking, maybe it’s boring, fans hate it.

“The thing is nobody is going to own it if it goes wrong. They never do. Nobody is going to say, ‘Well, OK, we saw that coming. That was my idea.’

“There will just be another big ‘ol reaction if it all goes wrong. And what did we get?”