“I Don’t Buy It” – Dale Earnhardt Jr Doubles Down on His Defense for Richard Childress’s “Stupid” Driver

Last weekend was as big a blockbuster as it was expected to be. The penultimate weekend of the 2023 NASCAR season lived up to every ounce of hype that it’d been receiving. In the Cup Series, we saw Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney cruise through to victory and take up his spot in the Championship 4 without much chaos. But the Xfinity Series was different. The last lap fiasco that led to Richard Childress calling his own driver Sheldon Creed “stupid”, has been the talk of the town ever since.

As Creed continues to receive the blame for the crash of his teammate Austin Hill, he finds one big name in his corner. Talking on his podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr jumped to the rescue of Creed once more.

Dale Earnhardt Jr shows utmost confidence in Sheldon Creed

The former Hendrick Motorsports star has never been a harsh critic of Sheldon Creed. Over the last few months, there were even moments when it appeared like the driver would join the Xfinity outfit of Junior choosing to leave Richard Childress Racing. But that never transpired into reality. Despite that, Junior has expressed his complete confidence in the thought process of the driver. Hitting back at Childress and his gang that’s accusing Creed of Hill’s crash, the racing legend has been very vocal since the onset of the incident.

Getting behind the mic on his podcast, he continued further down that path. Explaining how his expert eyes could see no fault in the moves from Creed’s #2 car, he expressed that Austin Hill was just an unfortunate victim. He said, “The only thing in Creed’s mind in that very moment when he slams on the brakes in the middle of three and four, is ‘How do I get there before everyone else?’ And, ‘How do I get my car off this corner?’ You know, I just don’t buy it. I don’t buy that he did this intentional thing to hurt his teammate. I don’t believe that, at that moment, there was spite leading the charge in terms of emotion and decision-making.”

Dale Jr’s words are a direct result of the accusations from Richard Childress, Andy Petree [VP – RCR], and Austin Hill. The three top men have firmly expressed their displeasure at Creed not giving up the space for Hill to pass in the final lap. However, Junior doesn’t find a shred of backing for that despite watching the footage of the lap multiple times. Instead, he gave his take on how things went down in the last lap.

Watch Story: A Twist of Fate: The Martinsville Controversy

The Hendrick Motorsports legend explains the corner that Sheldon Creed was in at Martinsville’s final lap

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The ending moments of the Dead On Tools 250 were of massive importance. The day’s winner would get an assured seat in the Championship 4 race at Phoenix, and for Creed, it was a must-win situation. The grid flew down towards the chequered flag, and the outgoing RCR racer and his teammate Austin Hill led it from the front. A sequence of events followed between the #2 and the #21, which eventually led the latter to literally crash out of the race. JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier then, took the spot that Hill vacated and got ahead of Creed for the win.

Though his own driver winning should be enough of a solace for Dale Jr, he has gone through the efforts of backing Creed from fire. Mentioning that he’d gone to the press room and watched the late restart multiple times, he underlined that he couldn’t see anything wrong with what Creed did. Junior’s take was that Creed could have possibly done nothing else in those moments.

Empathizing with the #2 driver’s need to win, he said, “Now it’s easy to knock the damn radiator out of a car at Martinsville. I’ve done it. But he was, you know, 21 unfortunately knocked his out at that moment. But I don’t think it was like this intentional… ‘Man, I’m going to slam on the brakes! Screw this 21 car!’ I mean there is no way that Creed isn’t trying to get to the finish line first. There’s no way.”

Intentional or not, Creed’s action resulted in both himself and his teammate not grabbing the win. Now both will sit out of contention in Phoenix. What’s more interesting is that Mr Childress will be wanting Creed to climb back into the car one last time. After the season ends, we will be seeing the driver move to the camp of Joe Gibbs Racing. Let’s hope he finds friendlier faces and softer words when he ends up there in 2024.

Read More: “It’s Going To Be Difficult”- 2x Coca Cola 600 Winner Warns Dale Earnhardt Jr’s 37-YO Star Against Limited Opportunities Amidst Championship Hopes