Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t digging into the Bubba Wallace and Aric Almirola confrontation story and is going to leave it up to the drivers themselves to tell it should the moment ever arise.
Almirola is currently suspended by Joe Gibbs Racing until the Indianapolis race weekend July 19-20 over a physical confrontation he had with Wallace at a Toyota drivers meeting back in May. The exact details are scarce but Almirola was said to be the aggressor and was punished accordingly.
Wallace fielded one question about the issue over the weekend and didn’t offer much.
“They don’t want me to get into the details,” Wallace said at Nashville Superspeedway. “Keep some people’s images good. I think I said enough at Charlotte last year. So, all in all, life is good for me. That shit happened over a month ago. A lot of good has come my way, and that’s what I’m focused on.
“Focused on getting our stuff turned back around, and you know, off the race track, I’m focused on my wife, and baby boy, that’s growing and growing, so that’s all you can really ask for. So things are good for me off-track. Not so much on-track. That’s what we’re focusing on right now. So, there you go. That’s the only question you’ll get.”
Earnhardt could press if he really wanted to but isn’t.
“I don’t think we’ll ever really know,” Earnhardt said on the Dale Jr Download podcast this week. “I could probably call Denny [Hamlin] and say give me the scoop, and he’d tell me. Out of respect to Bubba and Aric, it’s probably best that they be the ones to tell that story if they ever want to.
“…Things must have really gotten heated in that room. If I had to guess, there’s probably a dozen people in this competition meeting. So you got a lot of witnesses, a lot of people to see how this all gets started or whatever happens. I would trust their judgment and trust Joe Gibbs Racing’s judgment to make the decisions and handle this the way they think they needed to handle it. If it was to suspend Aric and pull him out of the car, then I trust that that’s what needed to happen.”
Hamlin says he was not at that meeting and let the Gibbs team handle it as they saw fit. Hamlin drives for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Cup Series but co-owns the car that Wallace drives at the highest level.
“I don’t know if I need to know what happened in that room …,” Earnhardt said. “It was a physical altercation between the two and that Aric was the one that was deemed the instigator of the whole thing. I guess. that’s all we’ll ever know. That’s fine with me.”
Earnhardt ultimately hopes everyone can move on come the end of the month.
“I hope that they can get this all worked out and cooler heads can prevail and Aric can enjoy the remainder of the season and then possibly get him some victories before he officially whenever hangs it up entirely,” Earnhardt said.
