Dale Earnhardt Jr Calls for the Return of NASCAR’s Most ‘Chaotic’ Rule From Past

The Car of Tomorrow brought a new style of racing with it – tandem drafting. Drivers realized they could hook together almost bumper-to-bumper at superspeedways without breaking apart for long stretches. This kind of driving made driver-to-driver communication necessary, which was the norm back then. However, the chaos that was created, unfortunately, led to its ban by 2012. But cut to 2025, Dale Earnhardt Jr, who himself enjoyed the use of this technique, wants the iconic rule to come back for some fun reasons.

Though the driver-to-driver communication was short-lived, it was certainly a memorable one as it helped to gauge the chaos and fun elements of the race. Instead of just hearing from crew chiefs and spotters, drivers could jump onto their rival’s channel to talk smack, make strategies, or any such small talk they wanted to make. Though eventually phased out, the rule left behind memorable moments and a “what if” nostalgia that Dale Earnhardt Jr now wants to see revived.

Dale Earnhardt Jr misses the driver-to-driver communication

On his Dale Jr Download podcast, Dale Jr expressed the amount of added excitement it would bring to racing once again. “Yeah. We wouldn’t be able to keep up with amount of entertaining sh-t we could put on the broadcast if the drivers talk back and forth. It would just be chaos, it would be like, ‘Where do you turn?’ There would be so many conversations happening. Especially when something bad goes down, like the big wreck at Daytona on the front stretch. You’d be like, ‘What the sh-t! We got to take 30 minutes sifting through all of the conversations here to give it to the fans and say, ‘Aww man! Listen to what this guy said. This guy said this, this guy said that.””

Dale Jr’s excitement highlights how much raw entertainment value such a rule could bring in today’s NASCAR. The fans would be on a treat to get the unfiltered chaos from the races. For instance, a massive wreck at Daytona could bring in so many different reactions and emotions from drivers, and broadcasters would go crazy with the content they receive in this process. But what if there’s a clash between a driver’s crew chief and another driver talking to one driver at the same time?

For this, Dale Earnhardt Jr already has a solution, something that he used to apply back then. “Well, they would be able to make the crew chief be the overriding dot. So any time the crew chief keyed up and talked or the spotter, it would override anything.” Dale explained this further with his own example, saying, “I had a harness in my car that would hook up to music. I could listen to music, sitting on pit road…You’d be in that line for 45 minutes…If Tony Jr had to say something or when I pull out on the track, they’d start talking and it’d override the music.”

This solution would definitely come in handy, as the chaos of the open driver-to-driver chatter wouldn’t necessarily interfere with the critical voices that matter most. NASCAR already had technology capable of making the crew chief or spotter the “priority channel,” so this would give the team the priority while still letting drivers enjoy the added excitement of talking to each other.

Dale Jr then mentioned some fun stuff drivers could do if this rule ever had to come back. He added, “I think it would be cool to jump over on someone else’s radio and talk sh-t or high five them. They win the race, everybody’s jumping on their radio. It’d be like everybody talking over the top of each other. Congratulating that driver if they were very popular.”

However, as all things lead to their saturation point, this rule would not be the exception, according to Junior. “It would be something we’d love then want it to go away after about 5 years. Kind of like the digital mirror. They’re like, ‘Oh that’s nice, the digital mirror.’ Now we’re all like ‘f–k that sh-t.’ Let’s get rid of the mirror then we’ll let the drivers talk to each other and see how it goes.”

Dale Jr compared the idea to NASCAR’s experiment with digital mirrors—something drivers initially welcomed but quickly grew tired of it too. A lot of chaos was created from this might eventually make the fans and everyone want to go back to some silence and simplicity again.

Whether this rule returns or not, Dale Jr’s call shows that sometimes the most chaotic rules are the ones that are missed the most. But for now, he has chosen to give his two cents on the big wreck at Daytona last weekend.

Dale Jr does not like the blame culture

Last weekend at the Daytona International Speedway, there was a massive wreck that became responsible for shifting the playoff bubble hugely. Alex Bowman, Austin Cindric, Kyle Larson, and Bubba Wallace were a few that majorly got caught up in this 17-car mess, which occurred early in Stage 1 on lap 27. Of course, many veterans and analysts were quick to analyze the incident and assign blame to the trigger. Denny Hamlin, for instance, pinned the blame on his own 23XI driver, Bubba Wallace, on his podcast. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr had a different take.

He attributed everything to a racing incident and the general nature of superspeedway racing. He declared, “It just happens. The big one, who’s to blame for the wreck? Why is everybody so f—–g wanting to blame f—–g someone for this? I’ve been around this sh-t a long time. And when the big one happens… it just happens.”

According to him, in earlier days, the superspeedway wrecks never culminated in drivers pointing fingers at each other like it is today. With the playoffs just around the corner, he stressed that strategy and luck can trigger individual errors, too. While Bubba Wallace’s spin may have sparked this incident, Jr saw it as nothing more than the kind of drafting bump that’s typical of superspeedway racing.