Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on Joey Logano, whether Austin Dillon made a ‘chickenshit move’

Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighed in Tuesday on Austin Dillon intentionally wrecking Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on the final lap of this past Sunday’s race at Richmond to take the checkered flag.

Earnhardt, speaking on his “ Dale Jr. Download ” podcast, said he doesn’t believe Logano would have been as mad at Dillon if he had executed his move from a car length or two back. Instead, Dillon slammed into the back of Logano in Turn 3 from four to five car lengths back, thus wherein lies the problem, Earnhardt said.

“I think that Joey has been on the other side of that quite a few times,” Earnhardt said. “You know, as mad as Joey was, there’s a lot of examples of him sort of being in the same situation. I think what Joey was mad about is, ‘Man, you came from four cars back, you know, when we’re going down the back straightaway.’ There’s some drivers that would be in Austin’s shoes and go, ‘I’m beat, you know, I’m too far back.’ Now, if I was two car lengths behind or one car behind, I’m definitely hitting the hell out of the 22. Now, maybe not every driver, but I would expect every driver to do that. And so, I’m alright in Richmond, especially if you’re within striking distance to move the car for the lead. I’m alright with that.

“But where is the line? … Logano thought that he had earned enough of a distance to earn to have to for the three to go, ‘Yep, he’s got me, if I sell it down in there, I’m barely going to get there and clip in the right rear.’ And it’s just an unwritten, there’s no rulebook, there’s no pamphlet. But there’s a code of, ‘Dude you don’t come from four car lengths back.’ That’s Joey’s point of view. … So, like, listen, he isn’t denying that. It’s very clear what happened with the 22. And I think Joey, he’s like, ‘Look, God dang man, I was, you know, had you beat now, you know, if you’ve been two car lengths back, one car lengths back, I could have accepted this, but golly, you came from four or five car lengths back.’

“It’s trivial, I know. But there’s some drivers that believe when you’re as far back as the 3 was entering Turn 3 that you don’t make the move. That it’s over. The race is over. Joey was honestly sitting there probably coming to the white flag thinking, ‘I’m about to freaking steal this.’ … But again, Joey has been on the other side of this definitely. Like he sent [William] Byron into the wall at Darlington. It’s fair game.”

Joey Logano, Austin Dillon facing potential punishment from NASCAR

Logano didn’t hide his displeasure with Dillon after the race. First, he revved his engine on pit road near Dillon’s team, as well as his family. When he got out of the car and spoke to the media, he referred to Dillon’s race-winning move as “chickenshit.”

“No, when you get that far ahead, three four car lengths ahead in three. I didn’t back up the entry, I was like, ‘I’ll just wrap the bottom here, I’m good.’ And he just drives in so hard,” Logano said . “Obviously, he didn’t make the turn because he hit me and the 11 was going to win the race. So, he had no intention to race. I beat him fair and square on the restart and he just pulled a chickenshit move. He’s a piece of crap, he sucks. He’s sucked his whole career, and now he’s going to be in the playoffs and good for him, I guess.”

NASCAR is expected to announce Wednesday any penalties stemming from the on-track incident, as well as Logano’s actions on pit road.

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