“We all saw it for what it was”: Fans disagree with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s defensive take on Kyle Larson goldenboy claims

Last week's finish in the Brickyard 400 seemed somewhat unfair to several NASCAR fans, including some at the Bojangles Studio, where Dale Earnhardt Jr. hosts his podcast, 'The Dale Jr. Download'. However, Junior saw it differently and, unfortunately, fans on X (formerly Twitter) disagreed.

Following an overtime restart, the then-race leader Brad Keselowski ran out of fuel, giving away the lead to Ryan Blaney. However, Larson capitalized on the bottom lane and passed Blaney, who missed the option to choose his row. The Team Penske driver radioed to his team, calling Kyle Larson a "Golden Boy".

Things ultimately went in Larson's favor. With just a few laps to go till the checkered flag, Ryan Preece spun out after a hit from Chase Elliott. Interestingly, NASCAR brought out the yellow flag only after Kyle Larson took the white flag, following Preece's wreck.

This gave away the win to Larson under caution, who won his fourth race of the season and 27th of his NASCAR Cup Series career last Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Reflecting on the same, a co-host of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s podcast said:

"I have my own conspiracy theories on it. It's gonna be hard to convince me that if any other car is leading that race...if Daniel Suarez is leading that race, they throw the caution."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't ready to concur as he expressed his opinion.

"Bullshit! Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed.

"It all worked out too perfectly. It's at Indy. Larson's running the same damn paint scheme as he was before (at the Indy 500)," replied the co-host.

"But that didn't go that well," Junior argued. "Now if he had won the Indy 500 in that Indy Car then maybe I could have get on this wagon."

Several fans reacted to Junior's comments, with one calling the Hall of Famer wrong.

"Agreed.....Dale is wrong on this one! We all saw it for what it was," the fan said.

Another fan suggested that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was affiliated with Hendrick Motorsports.

"Jr is Hendrick. He wouldn't say the golden boy term to Larson lol he'd lose his money from Rick," they said.

Here are some other reactions to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s comments on NASCAR not throwing the caution flag right after Preece's crash.

"@DaleJr your love for Hendrick is blinding your view of this situation," a fan wrote.

"Apparently Dale is blind to NASCAR’s constant preferential treatment of HMS. Isn’t Rick a minority owner of Jr Motorsports?" another fan said.

"Jr is part of the conspiracy of course he’s gonna say it’s crazy," someone added.

With that said, NASCAR will return to Richmond Raceway on August 11 for the 23rd race of the season. The 400-lap event will be broadcast live on the USA Network and NBC Sports with radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals his problem with NASCAR VP's take on the controversial caution

NASCAR's Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, said in an earlier interview that NASCAR always wants everything to play out naturally, facilitating as many green flag laps as possible throughout the race. However, he also said that the officials had kept a close eye on Ryan Preece's car, lest he should be able to move again.

"We did everything we possibly could. We kept an eye on the 41," Sawyer told NASCAR's Alex Weaver. "He was turned around; he was really giving a solid effort. Once he came to a stop, we could tell that he wasn't gonna move. We'd already taken the white, we just couldn't run by there again."

Here is a video of Ryan Precce's crash at IMS:

Nevertheless, Dale Earnhardt Jr. saw it differently.

"That, to me, is a great explanation but the only problem with that is I felt like I knew he wasn’t gonna be able to move before they got to Turn 4. And I think a lot of people feel that way," Junior explained (via On3).

Junior felt that, like him, many others knew Preece would not be able to move after the spin-off in turn 2. This means that NASCAR probably could have thrown the caution flag before Larson had taken the white. Even Ryan Preece had expected NASCAR to bring out the yellow when he hit the wall.