One of the incidents that caught Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s attention during the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway was a dust-up between Ryan Blaney, William Byron and Martin Truex Jr. on Sunday.
Byron made an aggressive move on the restart, making it three-wide in the corner with himself, Blaney and Truex Jr. in a surprising decision. The No. 24 couldn’t stick it on the bottom, and he pinched the No. 19 and No. 12, which led to the destruction of the reigning Cup Series champion’s vehicle.
Blaney certainly wasn’t pleased, and Truex Jr. was caught in the middle, as well. During the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download, the NASCAR Hall of Famer tried to make sense of the entire situation.
“We had a couple a couple of things happened during this race, right? Blaney gets put in the fence, as Byron goes three-wide on the restart,” Earnhardt Jr. started. “Byron gets the run. And he’s like, ‘I gotta take this run. I got an opportunity here. I got to take it.’ Now, he washed up in turn two. He made Truex have to make a move. Truex is trying to lift out of there, but he had he forces Truex up the racetrack. Truex hits the No. 12. Blaney, he has every right to be angry. If Byron is going to go down there, and take that — I will say this, I’ve done this. Going three-wide on the restart, being the guy that goes three-wide on a restart, you assume, immediately, a little extra responsibility, because you’re making an unusual move. Right? Going three-wide on the restart is unusual. It’s an unnatural move. It’s not a common move. But it’s a move, you can make your choice. But when you do that, you assume more responsibility. Because you’re going to say, ‘Alright, I’m making this choice. But I also need to realize that I’m putting the other two guys in an uncomfortable and compromised situation. So you’ve got to assume a little more responsibility, and try to make sure you’re tidy.
“That’s where I think Byron didn’t meet the expectation of the other two drivers coming off turn two there. He didn’t stay tidy. He kind of gets off the track a little bit. And he did that, because he didn’t want to lose momentum down the back straightaway. He’s losing the race car a little bit. He has to come out of a gas down the back straightaway, he’s going to lose spots to those two cars and then probably be three-wide with the guys behind him. He’s gonna, and then he’s super shallow into turn three. This could be a situation, by the time he gets back to the flag stand, he’s lost about six spots. That’s what he’s trying to avoid. Right? And he gassed it up, or slides of track or whatever. He ends up not giving those two cars the room that they needed, and forcing one of them to have to lift out and then and make contact. So Blaney has, in my mind here, Blaney has every right to be angry, and Byron should try to make that right at some point.”
Earnhardt Jr: Byron put Blaney, Truex Jr in ‘tough situation’
Of course, Blaney’s reaction was visceral, but taking the names out of it, Earnhardt Jr. still believes when you go three-wide on the restart, you’ve got to make it work, and the No. 12 has a legit gripe with Byron.
“I don’t even think about who’s driving the cars. Yes, you can go three-wide and restart, if you feel like you can take care of the guys around you when you do it, because when you do go three-wide, that’s puts them in a tough situation, and you’ve got to do what you can to try to make sure that you don’t cost him anything. It costed them, it costed Blaney and Truex and a few other cars,” Earnhardt Jr. added. “So you know, I don’t see how, and it doesn’t really matter who’s driving the cars. That’s any three-wide move on a restart. We see it all the time, and sometimes it works out, everybody’s fine. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. After the fact, you know, whatever Blaney will say, or will he get mad or not be mad.
“You know, Blaney inside the car is different than Blaney outside of the car, certainly. That’s not new for drivers. And I think we’re all kind of that way. I guess, if I kicked you in the shin and you’re in a 100 degree sauna, you’d probably have a different reaction than you would if you were standing outside on a 70 degree day.”
It looked like Blaney was going to retaliate on the track, and Earnhardt Jr. is glad he didn’t, theorizing that the No. 12 could’ve been parked if he tried anything extra on Sunday.
“They’ll have to have a conversation about that, which is you know, going to be interesting. … That is a tough situation, because I’ve been in the car where the guy has ran into me. And then I’ve been in the car where — so many times, I wanted to go out there and destroy the other car,” the NASCAR Hall of Famer delineated. “But you know, every time, if you go out there and you drive in the side of them — if I’m him, I want to go over there and hit that No. 24. I just want to break the car. Or at least lose a lap or two. … I want him to be that frustrated. Because I know what my day is over. I want his day to be over. … He probably wanted to drive into that car in that moment.
“I think he’s probably thankful he didn’t, because I think NASCAR would’ve had to react. … Don’t want to take a chance on that kind of punishment coming down.”
Alas, it’ll be interesting to see how Ryan Blaney and William Byron race each other moving forward, and that’s something Dale Earnhardt Jr. will have an eye on as the season progresses for the NASCAR Cup Series.
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