Dale Jr on Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin: Why? Why do that?

Ultimately, Dale Earnhardt Jr. just doesn’t understand what the incentive was for Ty Gibbs to race championship eligible teammates Denny Hamlin and Christopher Bell in a way that eventually got him punted on Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Earnhardt expressed empathy to Gibbs, because there have been seasons in which he was the teammate that needed to let his stablemates go by and more easily chase a championship, but just couldn’t fund a justification for how he raced Bell and Hamlin.

That’s especially true given how he wrecked teammate Brandon Jones in the Xfinity Series race at Martinsville in 2022.

“He's not been a great teammate at times,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr. Download podcast. “He’s had some moments with, one of the more popularized ones, would be Brandon Jones at Martinsville but there were run-ins with some other folks in some Gibbs Xfinity cars.

“I just have a hard time trying to figure out Ty Gibbs.”

Earnhardt says he likes Gibbs on a personal level in everyone their in-person interactions but he just didn’t understand what there was to gain in being harder to pass than even those his teammates are racing for the championship from laps 100 to 111.

“I’m having a hard time understanding like, what is his motive,” Earnhardt said. “What is your motive. You’re not in the playoffs. You’re his teammate. Like, totally let him go. Look, if I’m racing my teammate, I’m letting him go because all of his crew, the crew chief, engineer, the team owner -- all of the employees of the team, like the team manager, general manager, everybody who's present is seeing this.

“Am I really going to make everyone who works on these cars, even for a few corners, am I going to make them see that? The people at home, at the engine shop, all the people that are sitting on their couch, the employees of this operation, sitting at home and getting text messages. They’re getting texts that say ‘what the hell is he thinking?’”

Earnhardt says everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing were likely texting each other or getting texts like that.

“You know, I just don't get it,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know what his motive is. Like I can understand, maybe he’s not a huge fan of Denny. Maybe him and Denny don't have much of a relationship. I don't know. Maybe they have a great relationship, but it doesn't seem like it.”

His producer then said that doesn’t explain how hard Gibbs raced Bell too and Earnhardt wondered if anyone in the stable has a good relationship with him.

Earnhardt believes competition director Chris Gabehart and company leadership likely told Gibbs ‘this isn’t your day to be doing this.’

“It’s too far into it for this,” Earnhardt said. “If it’s race 10 or whatever, fine, but this is the playoffs and these are critical moments and critical positions. And to Denny’s point, your teammate shouldn’t be the hardest to pass on the race track in this situation.

“It sucks to be a teammate out of the playoffs when you have the other three in the playoffs. I lived that. Yoyu are out there running your ass off. You’ve had a hard year. You aren’t happy with how your year went. You’re frustrated and now you’re having to basically lay over for your teammates … but you have to do it. You have to understand and see what’s happening.”

Earnhardt wondered ‘where is the processing’ for Gibbs. He said it’s ‘so silly’ to be talking about this topic ‘that is the common sense thing to do’ in this situation. He said it ‘shouldn’t have happened.’ And while Hamlin ‘shouldn’t have wrecked him’ that Gibbs should have never placed him in that situation.

And ultimately, Earnhardt doesn’t even understand why Gibbs would do that even after the Jones situation in 2022.