Dale Earnhardt Jr. --- NASCAR's biggest star at least for the next eight races -- came out in support of the right to protest Monday, a day after some team owners within the series backed President Trump.

Earnhardt, who will retire from full-time racing at the end of the season, said in a Twitter message Monday morning that Americans are "granted rights" to conduct "peaceful protests" and quoted President Kennedy's speech from March 1962.

Protests in the NFL were widespread and dozens of owners issued statements after President Trump's speech in Alabama on Friday that implored the league's owners to fire players who refused to stand during the national anthem.

NASCAR team owners Richard Childress and Richard Petty agreed with President Trump.

"Get you a ride on a Greyhound bus when the national anthem is over,” Childress said of what he would do if an employee refused to stand during the anthem.

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“Anybody that don’t stand up for that ought to be out of the country. Period,” Petty said. “If they don’t appreciate where they’re at … what got them where they’re at? The United States.”

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