Dale Earnhardt Jr. is defending Chris Gayle after the pit call that has drawn criticism since Las Vegas. Earnhardt Jr. discussed the call on his latest Dirty Mo Media podcast.
“I think he’s been doing a hell of a job all year, and it’s difficult to sit here and nitpick a single call in a series of hundreds that he made that day.”
Denny Hamlin started from the pole in Sunday’s South Point 400. When Zane Smith spun on Lap 45, Gayle brought Hamlin in from the lead for two tires. Hamlin’s tires had only nine laps on them.
Kyle Larson was a lap down at the time after a long pit stop for adjustments. Hamlin’s stop let Larson take the wave-around and return to the lead lap. Hamlin restarted ninth, raced up to fourth and then spun with three laps left in Stage 1.
Hamlin finished 16th, while Larson finished second. Hamlin now trails Larson by 40 points.
Gayle has said the call “wasn’t a great call” in hindsight, and MotorBiscuit has his full explanation. James Small, the crew chief for race winner Chase Briscoe, also questioned the stop.
Hamlin said this week on Actions Detrimental that he would never have pitted had he known it would give Larson his lap back. He also said his team deserved a break.
Earnhardt Jr. said the call looks worse now that everyone knows how the race ended.
“Now that we know the scoreboard at the end of the game, it’s easy to say, man, that was not the way to go.”
He said Gayle did not have that information when he made the decision.
“Maybe it would have been a better result overall to have done something different, but in the moment, in the heat of the moment, he doesn’t know how the race is going to play out.”
Gayle became Hamlin’s crew chief in 2025. He replaced Chris Gabehart, who was moved into a competition director role at Joe Gibbs Racing. Gayle previously worked as crew chief for Ty Gibbs and Erik Jones.
Hamlin won four regular-season races in 2026 and entered the Chase as the No. 1 seed. That included three straight wins at Nashville, Michigan and Pocono.
Hamlin and the No. 11 team head to Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday, Oct. 11. Five races remain in the NASCAR Chase as the motorsports season nears its finish.