Dale Earnhardt Jr. delivers explosive animosity about The Clash: "I want them to be more physical"

26-time Cup Series race winner and one of the most loved NASCAR drivers ever, Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently shared mixed feelings on the season-opening exhibition race at the Bowman Gray Stadium. While he was happy about NASCAR's decision to return to its roots and how they handled the whole event, he wasn't so pleased with the level of aggression, or lack thereof, shown by the drivers.

Earnhardt Jr. was conversing with his podcast co-hosts and they were talking about how the race two races on Sunday, the 75-lap LCQ and the main event that followed, were entirely different in the level of aggression and on-track battles. The Last Chance Qualifying race was interrupted with nine cautions in just 75 laps while the 200-lap Cook Out Clash featured only seven cautions (excluding the mandatory mid-race caution).

Highlighting his dislike for the main event, Earnhardt Jr. shared:

"I didn't love the main event, I want them to be more physical, I wanted that, they weren't, all right. But I'm not going to poo poo on the whole thing because oh, I didn't get exactly what I wanted in the main event. You know... I didn't want Chase (Elliott) to get spun out but Chase didn't get roughed up for the win.

I mean Denny (Hamlin)... Chase kind of leaned on him a little bit and Denny just fell in behind him next corner and never touched him. I'm like, 'What are we doing?'... That's not what anybody that bought a ticket to that place wanted." (11:05)

Chase Elliott led 171 laps out of the 200 last Sunday to claim victory in the Clash. His lead was only challenged a couple of times by the No. 11 car of Joe Gibbs Racing, which led the second-most number of laps (28) and claimed the final podium spot behind Elliott and the No. 12 car of Team Penske's Ryan Blaney. Once Elliott retook the lead on lap 126, he never looked back and navigated perfectly through lapped traffic.

While Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't like the overall quality of racing at the Clash, he acknowledged that drivers have become more clean at racing in the past couple of decades.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains why NASCAR has become less dramatic

Motorsports: Dale Earnhardt Jr. (R) at the 16th Annual Hampton Heat - Source: Imagn

Unlike the old times when bumping and pushing each other hard on the track was the norm in NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes that the drama has died down in the modern era and he explains why that is the case. He thinks that since most of the races in NASCAR these days happen on intermediate tracks, Superspeedways, and road/street courses, the drivers are wary of the dangers involved with shoving each other around. He explained that in the past, short tracks were a lot more common which meant that the drivers could push a lot harder because of the lower speeds on those tracks.

"The driver mentality over the last several decades has shifted toward racing a lot more clean," Dale Jr. noted. "And I think it's due to the size of the tracks we go to and the speed that we typically run these cars. So they're not at tracks racing the way you race at Bowman Gray," Dale Jr. shared (11:58).

He predicted that if NASCAR were to return to a lot more short tracks, the racing would change accordingly. According to the former HMS driver, the drivers would be willing to take a lot more risks on short tracks and that would automatically translate to aggression on other tracks as well.

"Now if we were doing that more often, if there were multiple Bowman Grays in the schedule, there would be lots more bumping and banging that would carry over into other weekends and there'd be a lot more drama and feuding. That would be really really good ratings," Dale Earnhardt Jr. added (12:17).

The official 2025 NASCAR season will begin on February 16 with the first points-paying race, the Daytona 500.