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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — With a famous last name and a resume worthy of it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. pondered if owning a NASCAR Cup Series team was truly his destiny.
JR Motorsports, the Xfinity Series team he and Kelley Earnhardt Miller have helmed since 2005, has gone on to net rousing success with 88 wins and four drivers championships in the stock-car rank just beneath the top-level Cup Series, where Earnhardt Jr. and his late father Dale Earnhardt, a seven-time champion, enjoyed significant success.
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Getting JRM to the Cup Series has long been a desire for Dale Jr. He just wasn’t sure where that motive originated.
“Sometimes you wonder, because of growing up in the sport and your last name, are you making yourself do this because it’s what you think you’re supposed to do? Do you really want to do it?” Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday.
He learned after the 2025 Daytona 500 that the answer is a resounding yes.
JR Motorsports made its Cup debut appearance in the 67th annual “Great American Race” with reigning Xfinity champion Justin Allgaier piloting the No. 40 Chevrolet to a remarkable ninth-place finish in the program’s inaugural outing. A historian of the sport — and a two-time Daytona 500 champion himself — Earnhardt Jr. felt no need to hide his elation after an emotionally trying yet tremendously rewarding Speedweeks.
“It really was good for me, I think, to come here and experience this to see if it was truly something that I felt like I wanted,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “[…] I think this helped me understand that I do want to be here personally. I do feel like it’s what I should be striving for.”
A revelation all the same, there is little, if any, surprise that Earnhardt found the answer he was looking for. Earnhardt has longed for a chance to see his team expand into Cup. But now that this Daytona 500 effort confirmed any of those lingering questions, one remains: How does JRM find its way to full-time status on Sundays?
“We’re always ready. Have been for years, so we’ll see,” Earnhardt said. “When we started putting this deal together, I told Kelley, you never know what this experience might drum up and in terms of interest for some partners that want to help us get here full time.”
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Earnhardt understands if fans are exhausted after hearing rumors of JRM’s interest in Cup racing without a definitive timeline or path to that moment’s rise. But for him and Earnhardt Miller to contest a full-time team in the NASCAR Cup Series, the timing has always had to be right. That includes doing it with the right partners to provide the necessary funding. This time, it was country music star Chris Stapleton and his brand, Traveller Whiskey, who helped bring the No. 40 Chevrolet to the track. Whether it’s Traveller Whiskey in the future or other interested sponsors, Earnhardt hopes the right situation comes along to help JRM reach its ultimate Cup Series aspirations.
“We’ve been on the phone and at the table with other people that were interested in investing in charters that didn’t work out,” Earnhardt said. “But we could have some brand new conversations. So you just wait and see. If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.”
What was meant to be Sunday night was a splendid performance from Allgaier, who proved JRM hired the right driver and the right crewmen to fight for 502.5 miles around Daytona International Speedway. A staple of NASCAR’s national series since 2009 (and with sporadic starts prior), Allgaier muscled through multiple on-track mishaps in the “Great American Race” to score his second career Cup Series top 10 in his 83rd start, netting his first such result since an eighth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway in 2015.
As he stood on pit road next to his chariot, Allgaier looked back and saw the entire left-front fender ripped from his Chevrolet, the story of his night, he said, was “perseverance.”
“When you know you’re coming for a one-off, you know that this is going to be a unique experience,” Allgaier said. “People, equipment, tools. I mean, there’s so much stuff. I’ve already said it once, but just so thankful to having great people around us. Thankful for Hendrick Motorsports giving us a guy like Greg Ives to be able to use as a crew chief and have more knowledge, right?
“I think that this car has closed the gap so much to everything we’ve ever done, and to start a team in this sport right now is so hard. And what we accomplished today, it wasn’t pretty. We weren’t the fastest car on the race track all night. We didn’t do the best thing all night. I didn’t make the right moves 99% of the time. But when it’s all said and done, we came out of here with a race car that rolls and a solid top 10 finish. It’s hard to be sad about that. But, man, I’m really proud of what they accomplished and for allowing me to be a really smart part of it.”
Earnhardt believes that JR Motorsports “can be successful here” if it indeed works its way to the Cup Series on a full-time basis. So while Allgaier may have achieved JRM’s first top-10 finish in Cup, Earnhardt sees more ahead.
“I think that with the new charter model, it’s more economical to be here,” Earnhardt said. “And so I feel like with our ability to draw interest in terms of sponsorship and support, it’s an economical model for us with the new charter agreement, and I feel like that the charters will continue to increase in value. So if there’s somebody that watches what we’re doing here that’s not involved in the sport but would invest in this, we would be a good partner to consider because we know we have a good business model in the Xfinity Series. We know we have the ability to bring sponsor interest to our teams to be able to help fund our operation.
“But I think the overall hurdle is the initial investment in the charter. And I can put some money in, but I cannot — I will not, even if I had it — I would not buy the entire thing myself. I can’t risk my kids’ inheritance and future on some idea of my own. That’s a selfish thing. But I would certainly want to be an investor in any charter that we would be involved in. And the charters, I think, are at the value now to where you almost have to have partners to get in if you’re somebody like myself. But we’ll see.”
In the meantime, the thrill of competing and succeeding in the Daytona 500 is a moment the Earnhardts and all involved will savor forever.
“I’ll remember this race for a long time,” Allgaier said. “Regardless of the finish or any of the other stuff, just the emotions of the whole week. I’ll remember this experience for a long time.”
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