On Friday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. raised an issue about NASCAR drivers who partake in excessive celebratory burnouts after a win. He said it basically compromises the post race inspection when a driver tears up his tires in a burnout.
"It just seems like the Gen-6 car, once everybody started figuring out how to trick the underbody and things like that, everybody blows the tires out," Earnhardt said Friday.
"And it never has. 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.' They talk about not wanting to be the 'fun police' -- being the 'fun police' is not on the radar of their damn problems. You know, I don't think they need to worry about that; (that) is a cop-out, in my opinion. But I think that you can do burnouts without blowing the tires out. That happened for years."
Related: Earnhardt, Jr. slams NASCAR again, this time for a "cop out"
NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer Steve O'Donnell said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio he doesn't think it's an issue worth policing at this point.
"In terms of race burnouts, nothing new there either," O'Donnell said. "That's been out there for years. It's one of those things that we've elected to stay out of. It is something we will look at for 2018 but not this season."
Earnhardt's complaint warrants discussion since NASCAR officials are cautious about post race inspections, and a burnout can make it difficult to determine if a team does something wrong if the tires are blown right after the race.
Burnouts are very common amongst drivers following a win, and fans probably wouldn't like to see that taken out of the race. But it will be intriguing to see if NASCAR officials at least discuss the issue in the offseason.
(h/t Auto Week)