"'I'll flip the bird; I don't care'": Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals Rusty Wallace's indirect intervention which changed his racing etiquettes

During a recent episode of his podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on the turning point in his career regarding race etiquette after overhearing Rusty Wallace's comments on flipping another driver off. Junior, who isn't remembered by the NASCAR world as a driver with a lot of feuds to his name, was relatively a popular figure in the garage as well as with the fans.

But when he was starting in the Cup Series, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had certain ideas about how he'd approach racing against his rivals on the track.

"When I got into Cup racing, I thought, 'I'll flip the bird; I don't care.' I would flip off, maybe not Dad. It would have to be a pretty intense situation, but I would flip off his peers. In my mind, I'm not doing it; I'm just saying, yeah, I mean, if I think you, if I think I want to flip you off, I'm probably going to do it," Junior said [at 43:20].

But then, Jr. revealed that he overheard a conversation involving one of his father's top rivals, Rusty Wallace, about flipping off drivers for fun. According to Jr., Wallace's comments on the matter changed his perspective on showing someone the finger. Earnhardt Jr. said that according to Wallace, among all the disapproved behavior on the track, flipping another driver off was the worst.

Crediting Rusy Wallace for helping change his opinion about this on-track etiquette, Earnhardt Jr. said:

"Thanks to Rusty, this veteran, even just eavesdropping in on a conversation he might be having at driver's intro, I am now a smarter, better race car driver. And so I'm not just going out there going, 'F you, F you, F you', and getting myself a terrible reputation with my peers. And so I think you get one bird a race, and if you don't use it, you don't use it, but if you do, that's the one bird," Dale Earnhardt Jr. added.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. once got wrecked by Shawna Robinson for showing her the bird in practice

During an interview with Jeff Gluck in 2017, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on the consequences a driver can face from a rival for simply showing them the finger. Earnhardt cited an example from his past regarding this part of racing etiquette, revealing how one time, he flipped off Shawna Robinson in practice.

Later in the race, Robinson, while she never admitted to doing it on purpose, wrecked Dale Jr. because she was 'very upset' with the practice incident. Speaking to Jeff Gluck, Dale Jr. claimed that flipping off a contemporary or a senior driver is frowned upon, and said (as quoted by USA Today):

"You hear about (NASCAR Hall of Famer) Rusty Wallace and all those other guys - you get flipped off, especially by someone younger than you? You just go on attack mode. You lose your mind," he described.

Junior then commented that flipping off a racecar drier is 'a very seldom used' expression on the track, and even if one were to do it, there is an 'etiquette' to it.