When Dale Jr NASCAR’s Most Loved Driver Feuded With its Most Universally Hated

Dale Jr. is the most popular driver in the sport’s history, and while there are many reasons for this, a significant part of it is his likability. So when he gets mad, you really have to screw up to make him angry. But according to a lot of fans, screwing up is all Robby Gordon did.

Robby Gordon Never Knows When to Quit

The incident was overshadowed by the feud between 2 of the best finishers on this day, Jimmy Spencer and Kurt Busch, but they weren’t the only ones mad at each other in Thunder Valley that race. On lap 148, Robby Gordon was making up for lost time after he suffered a penalty at the start of the race for jumping the start and was trying to claw his way back to the lead lap.

Dale Jr. didn’t care or didn’t know, but if he did, he probably wouldn’t have cared, if you catch my drift. Because on that lap he gave RG the old bump and run, which caused him to lose 15 spots.

If you know Robby Gordon, then you know he isn’t the forgive-and-forget type, so when he came across 3rd place Dale Jr., he did everything he could to get in his way. Blocking him for multiple cars and even causing a small wreck as a result. After the race, though, things became really notable.

Dale Jr. Gets Heated on Pit Road

While Dale Jr. has always been extremely likable, he’s also always had a temper, especially in his younger days, and he wasn’t going to let this arrogant open wheel refugee try and ruin his race and get away with it. So he hit the No. 31. Robby was driving on pit road, which angered him in turn 1. He couldn’t even believe the same guy who ruined his race before the race had even hit halfway had the balls to hit him at all, and he wasn’t going to let him get away with it. So he turned him back on pit road sideways into a pit box.

Something that Dale Jr. had some things to say about: “Damn, 31 wouldn’t get out of the way. Lapping down racing the leader with 18 laps to go, but, uuuuuh, that’s why it takes 3 or 4 times to finally get into the Winston Cup series. Because he don’t pay attention and doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Now, Robby Gordon had his own words to say about it, but not in an interview, but in his own ESPN article he wrote after the race.”Dale Jr. and I made contact on pit road following the cool-own lap.”

That’s putting it nicely, I guess. Junior came off the track, headed onto pit road, and tried to run me into the pit lane wall. So, I hit him back pretty hard. I don’t know why he did that. He hit me twice before I hit him. He was mad because I wouldn’t get out of his way near the end of the race when I was one lap down.”

Talking Out the Incident

“But I was very close to making up that lap, and if we had gotten another caution, I might have been able to do that and get myself some more positions and more points. I didn’t hurt his car or push him out of the way during the race like he did to me. I was just trying to keep as few cars between me and the leader as possible so I could put myself in the position to make up the lap if the opportunity arose.” However, there wouldn’t be a rivalry that developed from this.

A couple of weeks later at Martinsville, Robby Gordon walked out of his car and towards Dale Jr., and the 2 talked their incident out. “I asked him if he was OK with me starting behind him,” said Gordon, who was third after his run but got bumped down to 11th. “It’s racing,” Gordon said. “We don’t have any grudges. One thing that’s nice about Winston Cup is we have 36 weekends to get at it. Texas was rough for us, but we’re happy to be starting where we’re at.”