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Dale Earnhardt Jr. defended Lee Pulliam following an incident at Martinsville.<\/p>\n
Dale Earnhardt Jr. came to the defense of Lee Pulliam following the driver\u2019s mishap on a late restart in last Saturday\u2019s NASCAR<\/a> O\u2019Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Martinsville.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pulliam, who was piloting the No. 9 JR Motorsports car, restarted second with 17 laps to go. As the field took the green, Pulliam missed a shift, which triggered a massive multi-car crash behind him.<\/p>\n The incident took out a number of drivers, including fellow JR Motorsports driver Carson Kvapil. While there were critics of Pulliam\u2019s mistake, Earnhardt Jr. took up for his driver in the most recent episode of \u201cThe Dale Jr. Download.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n While defending Pulliam, however, the JR Motorsports owner conceded that he\u2019s biased towards his driver.<\/p>\n Dale Jr. on Lee Pulliam incident: \u2018I must be biased\u2019<\/p>\n On his podcast, Earnhardt Jr. said Pulliam attempted to go from second to third gear, but made a mistake.<\/p>\n That error was crucial for the drivers behind him as it caused an accordion effect and destroyed multiple racecars.\u00a0<\/p>\n Austin Green<\/a> was one who criticized Pulliam for the mistake. Green, who was taken out of the race and finished 29th, said that if a driver cannot shift, they \u201cdon\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing here\u201d<\/a> in the O\u2019Reilly Series.<\/p>\n Earnhardt Jr. was straightforward about the incident, saying that Pulliam knew it was a mistake, therefore making it pointless to harp on the driver.<\/p>\n However, he acknowledges he is speaking on the matter while being the owner of JR Motorsports.<\/p>\n \u201cI must be biased. \u2026 He knows he [expletive] up. It\u2019s all right there in front of us. There\u2019s no denying it. There\u2019s no hiding from it,\u201d Earnhardt Jr. said.<\/p>\n Earnhardt Jr., who competed in the Cup Series from 2000-2017, might have had a conversation with a driver who missed a shift. Yet, the 51-year-old said he would not publicly shame them for it.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019m a driver and a guy misses a shift, I go over to his car and say, \u2018Hey bud, what was that?\u2019 Maybe I offer him some advice about what I do to try and not miss shifts. I\u2019m not going to go out and publicly go, \u2018Damn, that dummy missed a shift,\u2019 because I might be the dummy next week that misses a shift,\u201d Earnhardt Jr. said.<\/p>\n Dale Jr. on Austin Green: \u2018Don\u2019t have any business talking\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Earnhardt Jr. took exception to Green\u2019s comments about Pulliam following Saturday\u2019s race.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the 26-time Cup Series race winner praised Green for his talent, he does not believe the 25-year-old should be speaking on a driver the caliber of Pulliam.<\/p>\n \u201cAustin Green is a hell of a racecar driver. He\u2019s doing a lot in this car, he\u2019s impressing people \u2014 I would walk that back just a little bit, because I think Austin Green don\u2019t have any business talking about Lee Pulliam when you line the statistics up and the accomplishments. Like, what are we doing?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Earnhardt Jr. circled back to knowing he favoritizes Pulliam, given that he was piloting a JR Motorsports driver.<\/p>\n While saying he \u201chates\u201d being biased, Earnhardt Jr. conceded he could have made similar comments to Green\u2019s if he were in the same scenario.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m absolutely biased. I\u2019m biased. I get it, I\u2019m biased. If I\u2019m Austin Green, I probably say the [expletive] same thing. I probably do. \u2026 I hate being biased. I hate it, because I try really hard not to be,\u201d Earnhardt Jr. said.<\/p>\n Pulliam finished Saturday\u2019s race fifth and led 40 laps in the event. As of now, the 37-year-old has no upcoming starts in the O\u2019Reilly Series in 2026.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tJohn Breeden<\/a> John Breeden is a NASCAR contributor at Heavy Sports. He has five years of sports journalism experience. He graduated from James Madison University in May of 2022 with a degree in media arts and design. John is also a sports reporter for the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Previously, John was a sports writer for JMU’s The Breeze and a NASCAR content writer for Sportskeeda. More about John Breeden<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on NASCAR\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Dale Earnhardt Jr. defended Lee Pulliam following an incident at Martinsville. Dale Earnhardt Jr. came to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-576062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}