NASCAR has and will always be a contact sport, and sometimes tempers can flare. Even if you claim to be one of the coolest and calmest drivers, the sport can test that theory. Even Dale Earnhardt Jr. is not immune to losing his head on the racetrack, and once spun Carl Edwards out on the final restart. The latter was so furious about the incident that he confronted Earnhardt on Victory Lane.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was worried about getting into a brawl

There was one final caution, and Earnhardt was third, behind Robby Gordon and Edwards, respectively. Unlike modern NASCAR, there was just a single-file restart instead of the usual double-lane restart. Gordon got away well, and Edwards tailed him, with Earnhardt also sniffing an opportunity.

With a bump and run, Earnhardt got Edwards loose and then spun him out. Gordon escaped, but his momentum slowed, and Earnhardt took advantage to win the race. As he was celebrating on Victory Lane, a fuming Edwards stormed up to him and confronted him.

Edwards later confessed that he was really mad about it. Earnhardt also admitted he was a little nervous. He didn’t know if Edwards was there to beat him up for his actions.

“It was rare for somebody to come to Victory Lane. Even in a moment of anger like that. I wasn’t sure whether you were the kind of guy that was going to throw hands,” Earnhardt said on Sports on Prime. Surprisingly, Edwards also admitted that even he didn’t know what he would do when he got there.

Edwards said he was glad things hadn’t escalated. Earnhardt agreed, saying that there will be times when drivers have mixed feelings about how some of their race wins panned out. He also said he wasn’t proud of Michigan’s win, earning Edwards’ respect. That mutual respect, however, couldn’t keep Edwards in the sport. Years later, he revealed the real reason he walked away in 2016.

What led to Edwards walking away from NASCAR?

“I was having a conversation with someone very close to me. An older man, very close to me, he was struggling with alcoholism. It was a very tough conversation. I was 36, he was 66,” Edwards said to the Faith Driven Investor podcast.

“Thirty years from now, I’ll be on the other side of this phone. My son will be sitting on the stairs. I don’t know my kids; they’ll resent me for everything I did, and I’ll have given my life away. Once that was clear to me — it took me about a week of wrestling with it — I went to Joe Gibbs’ office and said, ‘We need to talk.’ I was fully prepared to have to race. I thought he’d force me to. I knew what I needed to do. I had to get away from [racing].”

Since then, Edwards has shown no regret. He remains part of NASCAR through commentary, unlike Earnhardt, who owns a team.