Dale Earnhardt Jr. praises the energy of the official who reprimanded Joey Logano for the pit lane incident

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was excited by what he saw from a NASCAR official who Joey Logano for his pit stop incident in Richmond. Download Dale Jr.The racing legend said the sport needed more of what he had seen at the inspectorate.

“I liked that energy. I shared that with the folks at NASCAR and I was afraid that maybe this individual would even be reprimanded for his energy and his handling of the situation,” Earnhardt said. “From what I've heard, that hasn't happened. I've stressed that that's a good energy and that drivers definitely need to show respect to the officials, especially when they think about who's in that booth every race weekend. We're very critical of the booth. I don't like that, I don't want to criticize the booth. But there are moments when we, the general fan base and ourselves, are hard on them.”

Logano performed a burnout on pit road in front of Austin Dillon's team and family after Dillon wrecked him on the final lap of the Cook Out 400. In addition to the official's yelling, NASCAR fined Logano $50,000 for the incident.

More information on the Joey Logano incident in Richmond

“We've got some work to do,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's vice president of competition, according to NASCAR.com. “There were a lot of people on pit road, and that's always the case. We have our officials out there. The drivers have to understand that. I completely understand the emotions — I understand them, I was there a couple of years ago. But you have to respect the fact that we have people on pit road. Our officials will be there, security will be there. We're going to do more on our part to make sure families, young children and sponsors and things like that don't get in trouble.”

After the race, Logano made it clear he didn't like what Dillon did to him. “No, when you're that far ahead, three, four car lengths ahead in three. I didn't back off the start, I was like, 'I'm just going to wrap up the bottom here, I'm good.' And he just goes in so hard. Obviously he didn't make the turn because he hit me and the 11 was going to win the race,” Logano said. “So he had no intention of racing. I beat him fair and square on the restart and he just pulled a coward's trick. He's a piece of shit, he sucks. He's been shit his whole career, and now he's going to be in the playoffs and good for him, I guess.”

Jonathan Howard of On3 contributed to this story.