Dale Earnhardt Jr. is arguably one of the coolest customers sitting inside the race car. The same cannot be said for the likes of Kurt Busch and Ryan Blaney. For those of you who have followed the sport for long enough, you know that after every weekend, fans wait for the radioactive segment. It’s not the best highlights or the best moves on the track from the race. Rather, it’s an unfiltered, boiled-up frustration of the race car drivers that often gets dumped on the poor crew who are sitting ducks in the pit road.

But, despite the calm demeanour, Dale Earnhardt Jr. also flipped off on the team radio once. Well, we saw how the likes of Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, and Chase Briscoe struggled with loose wheels at Las Vegas. And unlike the single lug nut system back in the day, the crew had enough options to play around with. But during the 2009 Kobalt Tools 500 race at Atlanta, the No. 88 Chevy crew had a rough day and couldn’t bolt on the wheels tight enough on Jr.’s car.

There’s a clip on YouTube you should check out where the No. 88 car heads to the pit-road, and next thing you hear is a pi—- off Dale Jr., sending warning shots to his team. “If the wheel comes off and I hit the fence real hard, I get to whack every damn one of you with the hammer.” Well, as it turns out, Jr. isn’t proud of this moment, and he confessed it on the Bussin’ With The Boys.

“It happens rarely but I was like, you can’t leave my wheels loose. I see that clip on the YouTube, and I’m like, God, that’s stupid, why did I say that. That was so rude and unnecessary. Even though I know that they’re my guys, we’re a team and I know they are probably standing there and going, what a f—— a——, he’s going to hit me with a hammer?” Dale Jr. revealed on the show.

Well, we had a very angry Kyle Busch on the radio during the Atlanta Motor Speedway race. Apparently he didn’t like being roughed up by Carson Hocevar, but his livid response was to wreck the whole field. “Got tell that 77 he’s done that same f—— move ten times. I don’t care if I wreck the whole f —— field; I’m over him. He’s a f——- do—-bag, I’m going to wreck his a–.”

Although these moments do not define the character of a race car driver, Dale Jr. didn’t like to call out his race team on the radio. The frustrations at Atlanta was a one-off moment for him where he went ballistic, as he understands the mistakes on pit-road cannot be eliminated completely.

Tempers and teamwork goes hand in hand at NASCAR

Dale wasn’t the only driver to snap. “Kurt Busch has some good radio actives on YouTube… Harvick was pretty vocal about his team,” he noted, recalling how Busch’s tirades and Harvick’s blunt pit crew critiques hit the airwaves. “I didn’t want it to get into the broadcast… I didn’t want it to be fad for the media,” Dale added, showing a line he tried not to cross. His hammer line slipped out anyway, a raw moment that dodged his usual filter.

Being a tire changer is arguably one of the toughest jobs out there in NASCAR. One mishap and the entire day’s hard work can result in a crash. This was what Dale Jr. wanted to avoid in Atlanta, but he wasn’t sure if the crew members should be held responsible for that tiny error. “Everything… is like it’s a human error it’s a possibility at any moment,” he said, earning a “Very forgiving individual” from the host. “I’ve lived it long enough to know that… zero tolerance is an expectation is not realistic,” he doubled down, a nod to the sport’s messy humanity.

Things are changing Next-gen cars now use single-lug wheels to slash these errors, a futuristic fix to an old problem. But back then, it was all trust and tempers, and Dale’s story, wild, real, and a little funny, shows how drivers and crews weathered the storm, hammer threats and all. While the times have changed, the radioactive is going to stay relevant and entertaining for the fans. This is until we don’t find another Kyle Busch or Ryan Blaney.