Earnhardt Jr and Team Penalized After Bristol
Written by John Davison · March 31, 2004
Dale Earnhardt Jr and DEI were both penalized for his actions at Bristol Motor Speedway during Sunday’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race. Earnhardt spun intentionally to bring out a caution flag when he had a wheel with loose lug nuts. His team, DEI, will lose 25 owner points and he will be fined $10,000 as well as losing 25 driver points, dropping his point total to 832 points.
Following is the official NASCAR release:
Earnhardt Jr., DEI Penalized For Incident At Bristol
Driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. was penalized with a loss of 25 championship driver points, a $10,000 fine and probation until June 1 for his actions during Sunday’s NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, NASCAR officials announced today.
The penalty also will extend to the team as Dale Earnhardt Inc. will lose 25 championship owner points for the actions of its driver.
Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 8 Chevrolet, was penalized for intentionally causing a caution condition during the race and as a result was in violation of Section 12-4-A (Actions detrimental to stock car racing) and 12-4-N (Any driver who, in the judgment of NASCAR officials, intentionally causes or attempts to cause a caution condition by stopping or spinning out or any other action) of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Rule Book.
“The driver of the No. 8 car was quite vocal in admitting he intentionally spun out his car to cause a caution condition on the track, which is clearly prohibited in the NASCAR Rule Book,” NASCAR President Mike Helton said. ” We have several rules in our Rule Book that have been in place for quite some time to prevent someone from altering the outcome of an event. This was a clear-cut case of that. Actions such as this will not be tolerated. We will always react to protect the integrity of our sport.”
Earnhardt Jr.’s championship points total will be adjusted to 832 points as a result of the penalty, but he will still maintain third in the championship standings. DEI also will be adjusted to 832 points with the 25-point penalty and remain third in the owners’ championship standings.
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4 Responses to “Earnhardt Jr and Team Penalized After Bristol”
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Junior should have known better than to run his mouth about what he did. He would have pulled it off if he wasn’t so damned open and honest.
Lesson learned.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he said it as a joke, and couldn’t back off the comment because it was over the air. Personaly I think he may have been embarrassed over losing the car and came up with the line on the spur of the moment. And yes, I still believe in Santa too!
I/m not stupid enough to believe this has never happened before, or won’t happen again. Jr. was caught red handed.
The bigger issue is why such a light penalty for altering the outcome of the race. If Jr. was left a lap down he would have finished in 22nd and lost more points as a result.
I suspect NASCAR looked at docking more points but had a eye on the new “playoff type” championship and was afraid they might penalize one of its bigger stars out of the end of the season “playoffs”
I put up a commentary on my Blog on this issue
good but i still say mike is on d.e.i. payroll.