If the Brickyard 400 race is still on your mind, Ryan Blaney‘s expletive-riddled rant also must be ringing in your ears. NASCAR returned to the Indianapolis 2.5-mile oval with a literal bang – several wrecks dotted the race. But nothing was as dramatic as the last few laps when some anti-climactic changes occurred and drew Blaney’s ire. And, on the other hand, NASCAR bore the brunt of a huge round of criticism.

Yet, Dale Earnhardt Jr begs to differ with Blaney’s stance. The Team Penske driver’s rants indicated some sort of secret agreement between Kyle Larson and the higher-ups. But Dale Jr snuffed out these claims, arguing in favor of NASCAR’s fair racing.

Dale Earnhardt Jr debunks Blaney’s complaint

Right around the last few laps of the Brickyard 400, it looked like Brad Keselowski was about to grab the win. Then, Kyle Busch wrecked out of the race and stole Keselowski’s chances as he had to pit for fuel. But that was hardly the end of the story, as Ryan Preece spun out and mysteriously stopped mid-track. NASCAR let the race run on green until Kyle Larson overtook Ryan Blaney, and only then waved the yellow flag, eventually ending the race under yellow.

From one angle, it looked like NASCAR played a favoritism card for Larson. And Blaney was furious, lashing out at both entities. But on an episode of the Dale Jr Download podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr pointed out Blaney’s extreme candor during the race. “I used to say on the broadcast that he has a short fuse…The guy that you talk to outside the car versus when he gets in the car, he takes the filter off. And he says whatever is immediately top of mind into that radio. I think that will probably change as he races longer into his career.”

Blaney called Larson a “golden boy”, indicating that NASCAR was in cahoots with Hendrick Motorsports. Many on social media also concurred, given Larson’s Coca-Cola 600 waiver earlier this year.

However, Dale Earnhardt Jr deemed this theory ridiculous. “Every week there’s a different golden boy. One week it’s Larson, next week it might be Chase Elliott…Everybody thinks that NASCAR is scripted…every time things like this happen, there’s this little ground swell…I’ve been in the middle of that years ago, it’s annoying. But it’s BS – there’s no conspiracy…there’s nobody sitting at a desk in NASCAR and going, Alright, let’s plan this next race out and try to get Golden Boy to win.“

Clearly, Dale Earnhardt Jr is not buying into Ryan Blaney’s argument. However, other veteran drivers have sided with Blaney. Denny Hamlin, for instance, thought NASCAR could have been a tad bit fairer in their decision. Kevin Harvick also criticized the higher-ups for their last-lap call.

The last lap confounded viewers and veterans alike

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Right after Brad Keselowski rolled back to pit lane knowing his day was over, a bizarre chain reaction of events spun off. Ryan Preece took a hit from Chase Elliott and spun against the wall. The No. 41 SHR driver tried to restore his balance but stopped dead on the track. He ran out of fuel, and NASCAR took time to decipher what exactly went wrong. In the meantime, Kyle Larson snatched the lead from Blaney and eventually won the race in yellow after NASCAR finally waved the caution flag.

Kevin Harvick, Preece’s former teammate at Stewart-Haas, frankly stated that NASCAR’s call was problematic. “When Preece spun out, he was mid-pack. He wound up nosing into the fence barely and the tire was flat. He was on the rub blocks, the tire was flat, he was not going anywhere. And they waited and waited and waited and he wasn’t moving sitting up on the racetrack. The caution should have been thrown in Turn 4. And it just doesn’t seem there’s as much consistency as there needs to be when it comes to these calls at the end of the race. Whether you throw a caution or not throw a caution…I didn’t like how the race ended with the caution not being thrown.”

Evidently, the response to the Brickyard 400 fiasco is mixed, as Dale Earnhardt Jr’s stance counters Harvick’s, and so on. This debate may rage on for the next few weeks until NASCAR returns to the racetrack in Richmond.