Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants NASCAR to regulate victory burnouts that cause tires to blow out

Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like NASCAR to curb post-race celebrations that sees drivers perform burnouts so excessively that it causes their rear tires to explode.

It is a common site that when a driver wins a race they do a burnout down the front straightaway, but often the celebration causes damage to the rear of a car. Earnhardt says drivers understand this and are intentionally being excessive because any damage incurred makes it difficult to properly inspect the winning car for any illegalities.

“It’s obvious it’s done intentionally,” Earnhardt said Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “It’s not unintentional. And you cannot tech the race car.”

NASCAR executives have said publicly it would prohibit burnouts if it felt drivers were trying to skirt technical inspection. However, NASCAR would prefer not to eliminate the celebratory act, as burnouts are something fans enjoy and eliminating them may oppress some of the emotion that comes with winning.

Earnhardt counters that NASCAR should concern itself more with ensuring the winning car is legal, not being viewed as heavy-handed. And NASCAR’s 14-time most popular driver, who is retiring at the end of the current season, says it’s possible to do burnouts without popping their tires.

“I have been kind of waiting all this time for NASCAR to eventually say look you know we would just rather you guys not blow the tires out,” Earnhardt said. “They talk about not wanting to be the ‘fun police.’ Being the ‘fun police’ is not on the radar of their damn problems, that is a copout in my opinion. But, I think that you can do burnouts without blowing the tires out. That happened for years.

“I’ve been feeling this way about the blowouts for a long time. It’s like damn, why don’t they just tell them to stop. You can do a damn burnout without blowing the tires out.”