Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick find NASCAR’s ‘Kyle Larson Rule’ unnecessary

Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t like the concept of a playoff waiver whatsoever, much less NASCAR’s new rules surrounding what happens when a driver misses a regular season race.

“I hate putting that label on it, but look: I don’t like this waiver stuff,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Monday on his Dale Jr. Download podcast with TJ Majors. “Like the original, the whole idea of it, I just don’t love it. Listen, I mean, I’m trying not to use any examples, but man if you’re injured and you’re out, you’re injured and you’re out. I don’t think there should be a medical waiver.

“I don’t think there should be any waiver whatsoever. You show up, you race, you get points. If you don’t race, you don’t start, you don’t get the points. You just don’t. So what is the argument against that? Why do we need the waiver at all?”

The reason from NASCAR is that its rules require a driver to have to start every regular season race to be eligible for the playoffs, that way, a driver can’t simply win one race and decide to not show up to races.

But as Earnhardt points out, it’s unnecesary on several fronts.

“There are all kinds of mechanisms in place without the waiver,” Earnhardt said. “it’s not necessary. Denny Hamlin cannot turn the machine off and just say, ‘Yep, we’re not going to run this week, car ain’t going to the track, I’m not going to be there’ That ain’t happening, it just ain’t going to happen, the waiver’s unnecessary.”

Beyond contractual requirements, a driver who misses races is also giving up a chance to race for additional points and playoff points, which is the key to having a cushion in each round of the playoffs.

Since the new waiver policy, one that strips a driver of all past and future regular season playoff points for missing a race, is a response to Kyle Larson missing the Coca-Cola 600 to race in the rain-delayed Indianapolis 500, the point is that Larson was already penalized.

Had he won that race or won races stages, he very well could have advanced to the championship race on the points he gave up that night. It absolutely cost him the regular season championship to Tyler Reddick, who advanced to the Round of 8 on the points he gained as a result of Larson not showing up.

That was a point Kevin Harvick articulated on his ‘Happy Hours’ podcast as well.

“It is a big change,” Harvick said. “Look, I’m of the win is the waiver. I’m still in that category. I just, I don’t like rules to just have rules. I think NASCAR has to protect its turf.

“I love the double. I love what they did last year with Larson. I hate that it worked out the way that it did… It still was a detriment to him all the way to the end. Charlotte, regular season championship. It penalized him himself.

“He didn’t win the regular season championship. It kept him out of the end of the year, and basically it penalized Larson all the way through without having a rule.”

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