Dale Earnhardt Jr.: NASCAR Drivers Would Be Bigger Assholes If Radio Chatter Was Private

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wishes NASCAR fans and media couldn’t hear what drivers were saying on the team radios during races, but he’s also grateful they can.

If that doesn’t make sense, hang tight.

Earnhardt Jr. said Friday morning at Dover International Speedway it would be preferable if no one but his team could hear his comments – which can sometimes be a bit harsh, like most other drivers – via scanners and the television broadcast of races.

But at the same time, Earnhardt Jr. said knowing everyone can listen to what he says is a good deterrent against being a jerk.

“I think it’s good because it makes you be a better person, it makes you control yourself better,” he said. “If (fans) did not have such freedom (to listen) as we do today, who knows what kind of assholes we’d be?”

Earnhardt Jr. said drivers “have to understand and accept” their team communications are open for everyone to hear. NASCAR actually mandates all radio frequencies are not encrypted in any way.

“That’s sort of the nature of the way the networks want to provide the sport to the fans; that’s something the media wants to cover,” he said. “So I’ve gotten used to it.”

But the son of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt also remembers a time when hardly any fans had radios. When he used to go to races with his dad, Earnhardt Jr. said it was “like pulling teeth trying to get a radio to so I could listen to what they were doing.”

“Nowadays, it’s all sort of out there in front of everybody,” he said.

If fans listen to Earnhardt Jr.‘s scanner Sunday at Dover, they might hear him make some comments about the track’s one-mile concrete surface.

Earnhardt Jr. said he’s not a fan of concrete tracks because it gets joints and bumps in it, “kind of like a wooden deck.”

“You hope around the racetrack all the way around,” he said, adding that his car “skips across the racetrack like a stone across a pond.”

But doesn’t a bumpy track add character? Earnhardt Jr. was asked that question by a reporter.

“It adds character,” he said. “But not all character is good character.”