There have been some wild moments in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season. Drivers have tickled the strict side of executives who doled out hefty penalties. For instance, Joey Logano was fined for webbed gloves, and Stewart-Haas Racing drivers were docked for illegal adjustments.

But the beef penalties got the maximum attention – especially because of some gray blotches in the rulebook. When Kyle Busch spun Ricky Stenhouse Jr and the latter punched him, NASCAR came down heavily on only one of them. A similar incident in Nashville made Dale Earnhardt Jr reveal his personal plan of action.

Dale Earnhardt Jr lets slip his villainous desire

The Nashville Superspeedway race was studded with cautions – but mostly due to the damp, slippery track. Yet one saw even more drama – Carson Hocevar spun Harrison Burton out of the blue despite the race being under caution. Yet NASCAR waited for three days to confirm the action and slapped him with a hefty fine mid-week.

Dale Earnhardt Jr thought the executive action was too slow. Then he went on to suggest that he would rather take the law into his own hands if his rival is not punished. On a recent episode of ‘The Dale Jr Download’, he quipped, “I wonder what’s okay under caution, ’cause I like to sideswipe the s**t out of some people. Is that okay? Am I gonna get penalized for that?”

Dale Earnhardt Jr’s co-hosts vehemently shook their heads at this proposition. Yet the two-time Daytona 500 winner continued with his aggressive sentiment: “If somebody p**ses me off enough, man I want to run up there and run into their left front. That’s the most sensitive part of the car. And if you screw that up on a guy’s car, he is going to have a hard day. So I like to run into that left front tire and bend up his fender and all that stuff.”

Co-host Andrew said that NASCAR would not be so benevolent in this situation. The executives take meticulous note of when a driver is getting rowdy. If the status is a green flag, like when Kyle Busch spun Ricky Stenhouse Jr, then NASCAR tends to be lenient. But a yellow flag aggression like Carson Hocevar’s is bound to invite strict action from the officials. But overall, getting in the executives’ bad books would hardly be a great idea.

Yet Dale Earnhardt Jr suggests otherwise. But beef penalties have never reached the level of technical penalties – as demonstrated by the past year’s shocker.

NASCAR takes technical penalties more seriously

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On-track conflict is fuel for the fans – hence the higher-ups know that it drives NASCAR’s popularity and TV ratings. Hence, beef penalties appear smaller when compared to illegal adjustments. Logano’s glove fiasco echoed Roger Penske’s IndyCar push-to-pass penalty. Then last year, the Hendrick Motorsports team was the subject of a colossal scandal.

In March 2023, NASCAR penalized all four Hendrick cars and one Kaulig Racing car. Their crime was the unapproved modification of a single-source part, namely the hood louvers. These vents prevent the need for teams to tape up the front grille of a car. Hence, each race team was docked 100 driver points, 100 owner points, and 10 playoff points. But the biggest shocker was the monetary fine – a $100,000 fine, the largest in NASCAR history, was slapped on each crew chief. Although appeals filed by the teams rescinded their points cut, the hefty economic penalty remained.

Thus Dale Earnhardt Jr’s desire to be vengeful on the racetrack may not be such a bad idea. NASCAR fans enjoy the beef, but the illegal adjustments have no fans and thus are highly risky.