Dale Jr.: “I probably shouldn’t have said something" about 2018 Clash
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is taking the blame for the backlash his wife, Amy, received this week when he mentioned her opposition to him running next year’s preseason Clash race at Daytona.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet
Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images
“I probably shouldn’t have said something. I put her in that position. It’s probably my fault for throwing her under the bus like that,” Earnhardt said Saturday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
This is Earnhardt’s final full-time season in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series but because he won a pole earlier this season, he is eligible to compete in the next season’s Clash non-points race.
At an appearance earlier in the week at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Earnhardt said Amy did not want him to run the race and many of his fans vented their displeasure on social media.
Amy later posted a statement explaining her position on her Twitter account, saying running the race was “not worth the risk of his health.”
By his side through it all
Earnhardt said he completely understands his wife’s perspective.
“She has been there for everything. A lot of folks that may have a different opinion about it weren’t there for the whole process,” Earnhardt said. “If anyone knows how difficult it was beside me, it was her.
“It wasn’t a lot of fun for her and we look at the Clash, the Clash has a real high crash rate, there’s potential to either finish the race or wreck. We’ve internally complained for years about why we even run that race because we always end up tearing up all four cars.”
When he and his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team won the pole for the Daytona International Speedway earlier this month, he said his first response was thinking about part of the reward for it, which is entry in the Clash.
“I’ve been trying to talk (NASCAR) into making this Clash more about pole winners because that’s what you would hear guy say when they won the pole in the 1990s,” Earnhardt said. “It lost its identity but now that they are back to using pole winners, my first reaction was that I had an opportunity to run the Clash.”
Hearing her out
Regardless, Earnhardt said he and his wife will come to the decision together.
“If it’s something she feels strongly about, I have to sit down and hear her out. I kind of threw her under the bus,” he said.
“It put her in a tough spot and she felt she had to voice a statement about it and I thought she handled it well. For no more characters then she used, I think she got her point across.”
Click on the image to watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. talk about it from Indianapolis:
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