JR Motorsports is going NASCAR Cup Series racing. At least for one weekend.
With JRM attempting the 2025 Daytona 500 with Justin Allgaier, the biggest question is whether this will make the organization want to race full-time in the Cup Series.
“I don’t want to do it any more than I want to do it now,” team co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. told FOX Sports in an interview Wednesday. “I’ve always wanted to do it.”
But Earnhardt was quick to point out that the 2025 Daytona 500 qualifying attempt is not part of some grand plan to move the Xfinity Series powerhouse into full-time Cup racing. The opportunity came about as singer Chris Stapleton wanted to sponsor a Daytona 500 car to promote his Traveller Whiskey.
“I don’t know that we ever had a plan that we were going to enter the 2025 Daytona 500,” Earnhardt said. “Chris and his team came to us with an idea, and this is the way stuff kind of comes together sometimes.
“There’s no conversation or plan beyond the Daytona race, but as we always have been, we have been open to opportunity and possibility. It’s got to make sense.”
Stapleton is friends with Cup team owner Rick Hendrick, who pointed him toward JR Motorsports (Hendrick is a JRM co-owner) while also offering the services of former Cup crew chief Greg Ives to lead the effort. JR Motorsports will field the No. 40 (to correspond with the blend No. 40 in the product).
“I always thought it would be cool that, if I did have something like a whiskey, we could have it on a car,” Statpleton said. “Mr. H. called me and said, ‘Dale Jr. is thinking about building a car for the Daytona 500. Would that have been interesting to you?’”
Allgaier, the defending Xfinity Series champion, will have to qualify for the Daytona 500 in one of the four open spots and should feel confident as Ives has been the crew chief for several strong Hendrick qualifying efforts at Daytona. There are expected to be at least eight cars vying for the four open spots.
“Justin winning the championship, this is a bit of a continuation of that celebration,” Earnhardt said.
Allgaier, who has 82 Cup starts — including two in the Daytona 500 — was a little surprised he got the call.
“When we sat down in the office, and they started describing what the plan was and what they were going to do, I didn’t expect to be the one they asked to drive it,” Allgaier said.
“I felt like, because I had been there for so long, they were just telling me what they were going to do before they announced it.”
Team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, who runs the day-to-day operations of the team, stressed that this is currently a one-race effort for JRM. They want to do a good job on the track and on the marketing side and will go from there.
“I’m excited because we get to experience it,” Earnhardt-Miller said. “And then that gives us just one more experience in our bucket that we can look forward to and say, ‘OK, how could we make this happen, again? Or do we want to make this happen in a full-time situation?’
“I’ve just been kind of riding the wave of the charter stuff for several years, obviously, with the conversations, and I’m just sitting back and waiting to see how things are going to shake out and what the opportunities look like.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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