Dale Earnhardt Jr. is one of the most loved and respected names in the world of NASCAR. While he retired from full-time racing in 2017, he is still very much involved in the sport as an analyst and team owner. For anyone who knows him, he is an outspoken individual who does not shy away from giving his strong opinions on anything related to the Cup Series. And recently he opened up about the issues related to the cautions at COTA.

Dale Jr’s role in NASCAR has evolved from only being a driver over the years. He seems to be more engaged in the sport at present than he was before his retirement. As someone who has been a driver and can observe from outside the track as well, his views on the sport and everything related to it come from a much wider perspective. 

What made Dale Earnhardt Jr so angry about COTA?

In a recent episode of the Dale Jr Download podcast, he shed some light on the cautions and overtime issue. The drivers experienced a triple overtime race and several cautions on the track. Dale Jr was in a conversation with co-host Mike Davis about Alex Bowman and Ross Chastain‘s battle in the race. He said, “I don’t know how you fix that other than hope that you don’t have light yellows. Right? ‘cause I don’t love these light yellows.” 

Painting a picture for the listeners where he is a race car driver, running in the race and get a yellow with three to go, Dale Jr said, “It would piss me off to no end. I don’t care if that like yellow actually puts me in a better position to win the race. I never looked at it like F*** yeah, here’s my opportunity, I was so mad that I ran 495 miles and some tiki tak bulls**t, and it was always tiki tak bu****t in my mind, whether it really was or not, brought out a yellow like we really couldn’t finish the last two laps because of this.” 

He further stated that it really made him angry and frustrated when such situations surfaced. Though it was from his years as a driver, he believes in sharing his real opinion. 

Read More: “Threw Some Padding Out” -Dale Earnhardt Jr Confesses to Making “S**t Up” to Influence NASCAR’s Decision-Making

What more does Dale Jr want to be added to NASCAR races?

The two-time Daytona 500 winner also spoke about NASCAR’s experiment with a new format at COTA to be applied to NASCAR’s other short race track. He also spoke about Tyler Reddick and how amazing his performance was during the race. Seeing the good work at other leagues such as IndyCar and Formula 1, he also asked NASCAR to have some new elements in the races to make them more interesting.

He said, “We need strategy races. We need fuel mileage races. We need a little bit of everything and this certainly checks some of those boxes. Gave us a bit of an, you know, an IndyCar, open-wheel, F1 style strategy race where different teams were on different strategies.”

All the suggestions certainly come from Dale Jr’s experience. It looks like it may be time for NASCAR to start listening to Dale’s podcast.

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With all the value Dale Jr has been adding, it looks like it is time for NASCAR to revamp a few things. At the end of the day, it will only add to NASCAR’s growth and fans’ delight.