The past couple of years has seen a great deal of speculation over whether or not Dale Earnhardt Jr would move his JR Motorsports to the Cup Series level or even start a new Cup Series team.
Jr has cited the cost of the charters as a major deterrent from entering the Cup Series.
However, Jr has announced that he will enter a car in the Daytona 500 with his Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier behind the wheel.
JR Motorsports has teamed up with award winning Country music star Chris Stapleton and Traveller Whiskey as the sponsor on the number 40 car. Veteran crew chief Greg Ives will sit atop the pit box for Allgaier.
Allgaier spoke on the opportunity saying, “it’s been really special. To be at an organization like this and to be able to make a team debut at the Daytona 500, that’s special. Obviously, we have to qualify our way in. We have a lot of work to do. It’s going to be difficult. But there wouldn’t be anybody that I’d rather tackle this opportunity with than [JRM co-owners] Dale [Earnhardt Jr.] and Kelley [Earnhardt Miller] and LW [Miller, JRM director] and everybody at the race shop.”
He continued, “to be the person that is making the debut on the Cup side, that’s a warm, fuzzy feeling, right? It’s something that you can never go back and get your first opportunity back. You can never go back and do things over again. This is truly the first.”
Allgaier concluded, “internally, it puts more pressure on myself. I want to see myself succeed. The first goal is to make the race. As an open, non-charter team, we have to go make the race. Then you switch your focus to, ‘If we make the race, how do we go win the race?’ I’m not showing up to go run 30th, right? We’re going there to try to have an opportunity to win the Daytona 500. What a story that would be if we could just go there and win. I don’t know that that’s in the cards or not, but it would be really, really special. Regardless, I’m honored to be the person that gets to drive this car.”
Earnhardt added, “we’ve been waiting for the right moment for JR Motorsports. With Justin winning the Xfinity Series Championship and Chris Stapleton’s undeniable star power, the planets aligned for this perfect opportunity to enter this year’s Daytona 500.”
JRM co-owner Kelly Earnhardt Miller spoke on the collaboration saying, “it was a conversation that Chris and Mr. [Rick] Hendrick were having. And of course, Mr. Hendrick knows what we’ve talked about over the last several years about wanting to potentially Cup race. So he passed the opportunity over to us and told us to take the reins and see what we could do with it. So we were able to land it and put it together.”
She added, “there’s nobody like Justin who knows our organization, who knows our needs, who can meet those needs and really deliver for this partner all year long, So it was just really the perfect storm. You know, you had a partner that was interested and excited and wanted to be at the Daytona 500 and you had a team in JRM with a driver like Justin who wants to be there.”
This is the third foray into competing in the Daytona 500. He previously ran when he drove for Harry Scott Jr. Allgaier also drove the Hendrick Motorsports number five car at Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600 last May as a substitute driver for Kyle Larson who was in Indianapolis running the Indianapolis 500.