Bob Pockrass
FOX NASCAR Insider
JR Motorsports will compete within the NASCAR Cup Series. At least for a weekend.
With JRM trying the 2025 Daytona 500 with Justin Allgaier, the larger query is whether or not it will push the group to wish to race within the Cup Series full-time.
“I do not wish to do it any greater than I wish to do it now,” group co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. informed FOX Sports in an interview Wednesday. “I’ve all the time wished to do it.”
But Earnhardt was fast to level out that the 2025 Daytona 500 qualifying try will not be a part of a grand plan to shift the Xfinity Series powerhouse into full-time Cup racing. The alternative arose when singer Chris Stapleton wished to sponsor a Daytona 500 automobile to advertise his Traveler Whiskey.
“I do not know if we ever had a plan to be within the 2025 Daytona 500,” Earnhardt mentioned. “Chris and his group got here to us with an concept, and that is how issues come collectively generally.
“There is not any dialog or plan past the Daytona race, however as we all the time have been, we’ve got been open to alternatives and potentialities. It has to make sense.”
Stapleton is buddies with Cup group proprietor Rick Hendrick, who steered him towards JR Motorsports (Hendrick is a co-owner of JRM) whereas additionally providing the providers of former Cup crew chief Greg Ives to guide the trouble. JR Motorsports will discipline the No. 40 (to match the No. 40 mix within the product).
“I all the time thought it could be cool that if I had one thing like a whiskey, we may have it on a automobile,” Statpleton mentioned. “Mr. H. referred to as me and mentioned, ‘Dale Jr. is considering constructing a automobile for the Daytona 500. Would that be fascinating to you?'”
Allgaier, the defending Xfinity Series champion, must qualify for the Daytona 500 in one in every of 4 open spots and may really feel assured as Ives has been the crew chief for a number of of Hendrick’s sturdy qualifying efforts at Daytona. It is predicted that there will likely be not less than eight vehicles vying for the 4 open spots.
“Winning the championship is sort of a continuation of that celebration,” Earnhardt mentioned.
Allgaier, who has 82 Cup begins, together with two within the Daytona 500, was a bit of shocked to get the decision.
“When we sat down within the workplace they usually began describing what the plan was and what they had been going to do, I did not count on to be the one they requested to guide it,” Allgaier mentioned.
“I felt like, having been there so lengthy, they had been simply telling me what they had been going to do earlier than asserting it.”
Team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, who manages the group’s day-to-day operations, emphasised that that is at the moment a one-race effort for JRM. They wish to do a very good job on monitor and from a advertising and marketing perspective and can go from there.
“I’m excited as a result of we get to expertise it,” Earnhardt-Miller mentioned. “And then that simply provides us one other expertise in our bucket that we are able to look ahead to and say, ‘OK, how may we make this occur, once more? Or do we would like this to occur in a full-time scenario?’
“I’ve been using the constitution wave for a number of years, clearly, with conversations, and I’m simply sitting again and ready to see how issues will go and what the alternatives will likely be.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He spent many years protecting motorsports, together with greater than 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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