Natalie Decker parked her truck during Friday’s race at Dover after just 81 laps after NASCAR black-flagged her for being too slow.
That, of course, isn’t the whole story. Not even close.
Decker essentially rage-quit during the race, suffering one of the most stunning in-car meltdowns I have ever heard. And folks, I’ve heard A LOT over the radio in all my years covering NASCAR. Frankly, until yesterday, I thought I’d heard it all.
But this? This goes straight to the top. NASCAR fans quickly unearthed the audio after Decker exited the race, and it’s something we’ll be talking about for a long time.
“You guys, I’m trying to hold my s— together, but I don’t want to keep doing this,” a crying Decker begins after being told to come down pit road for a pass-through penalty.
“There’s just so many s—– things that I could say right now, and I’m just trying to keep it together, about the f—ing director of the series.”
Here’s the full audio:
Goodness gracious. Again, I have never heard anything like it out of a NASCAR driver. Never. Credit to her crew chief, spotter and team owner for handling it like adults. I would’ve been going ballistic.
“Let’s remember what’s on our truck, and just bring it to the garage, right?” said team owner Josh Reaume, referring, clearly, to the sponsors.
“I feel like a f—ing failure if I do that,” she responded. “There’s so many things I want to say and I’m probably going to get f—ing suspended, you have no idea.”
Finally, after telling us 13 times that we “have no idea,” Decker ends the day by parking her truck, quitting on her team and leaving the Truck Series entirely. And then, naturally, she quickly turns her attention to social media.
“I’m sorry Josh, I’m not going to come back to the Truck Series,” she continued. “I’m staying in the O’Reilly Series, this series f—ing sucks. The amount of hate I’m going to get online for this is just going to be insane. I’m not ready.”
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Friday night, Decker braved her social media and actually released a statement, via Instagram:
“I got a penalty at the drop of the green flag, I pulled out of line before the finish line, when serving that penalty I got another one for speeding on pit road,” she said. “I am not going to lie I am really disappointed in myself because after all those penalties mentally I never recovered. I know there is going to be a lot of hate around my last to weekends racing and nothing you can say is worse then how hard I am on myself right now.
“But I am going to push myself to get through this and control what I can control moving forward and show up to my next race with a smile on my face and fire in me to keep doing what I love.”
Natalie may want to run that bad boy through an editor next time, but that’s neither here nor there.
Look, we write about Natalie Decker a lot around here. She’s an attractive female NASCAR driver who is very active on social media. That stuff plays well with an audience.
But this is just embarrassing. Let’s just call a spade a spade. This is such a bad look. It’s so bad, I’m not sure NASCAR should let her ever return. I’m serious. Do they really want drivers who melt down like that out on the track? That’s not a normal radio rant. Again, I’ve done this for a long time. I’ve heard it all.
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This one is different. This one sounds concerning. It’s not fair to the team, to the sponsors, to the other drivers on the track, and to the fans. Natalie Decker is a grown adult. She turns 30 next month. She’s a mother.
In no world should her boss be trying to talk her off a ledge over the radio during a race. That’s high school stuff. This is the real world.
“I’ll have a fresh bottle of water for you when you get out of the truck.”
It’s a nice sentiment. I get it. But, now that the dust has settled, it’s time to take the kid gloves off and have a real conversation about what just happened.
And, for NASCAR, it’s probably time to think about never letting it happen again.
