"I often heard, 'The shop isn’t a place for girls'": When Kelley Earnhardt explained why she left her driving career

While Kelley Earnhardt Miller was passionate about racing, systemic barriers led her toward the family business. Unlike her father, the legendary Dale Earnhardt, and brother Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley switched to management. She once explained how this decision was shaped by the perception of gender in racing.

Kelley took on the caretaker role in the Earnhardt family early in her life after her parents' divorce. After Dale's tragic passing at Daytona in 2001, she guided her brother, who was now the face of the team, as they set off on their JR Motorsports journey together. She is now an influential business leader as the co-owner of the team that fields four cars in the Xfinity Series, with 90 series victories and four championships.

Co-owners Dale Earnhardt Jr. and sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller celebrate after winning the 2024 Xfinity Series championship- Source: Imagn

Years before all of this began, she was passionate about racing. She had to balance a day job as her brothers would work in the garage and then race on weekends. This led her to make a choice that took her away from racing, a decision that was not entirely hers. In an interview with Kerri Mast in 2019, Kelley Earnhardt Miller revealed how the family business was set up for her.

"I often heard, 'Kelley, the shop isn’t a place for girls.' Even while I was racing, I was one of two girls who raced against all the men. They didn’t treat you differently because you were a girl....You felt that you weren’t strong enough, fast enough or good enough because you were a girl. I wish I would have been able to drop everything for my racing career, but it wasn’t set up to be that way," she said [via Brown Brothers Harriman].

NASCAR was a male-dominated sport in the 1990s and Kelley faced an uphill battle to break into it. The lack of opportunities eventually forced her to move into business administration. She also talked about the slow rate of female participation in racing while acknowledging the progress.

"The sport has changed, and it’s more open to women. Throughout my career, many women have worked in racing, especially in public relations and marketing roles, but not on the competition side of the business. It shocks me that there aren’t more women in the driver’s seat....Women make the majority of household buying decisions. I don’t know why the companies haven’t put that together and gone after it with their sponsorship dollars," added Kelley Earnhardt Miller.

She also talked about family-oriented teams and how the history of NASCAR can be traced back to them.

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Kelley Earnhardt on NASCAR’s 'family-oriented' teams

Bobby Allison (right) and Richard Petty (left) with Maureen Reagan at Nashville Pepsi 420 on July 14, 1984- Source: Imagn

Family-owned businesses have shaped the NASCAR culture for decades. The Petty family, Earnhardt family, and Woods Brothers have been long associated with racing in the top tiers of stock car racing. NASCAR itself began as a family enterprise with Bill France Sr and continues to operate under chairman and CEO, Jim France.

Kelley Earnhardt Miller admitted this and said:

"Our sport is relatively young. It started in the late 1940s with the moonshine runners and evolved from there. A lot of those racers had local roots in North Carolina, and their families started the sport – the Allisons, the Pettys, the Earnhardts. The teams are still family-oriented, but there are kids in NASCAR families that have not stayed in the business."

While family-owned businesses have enriched the narrative and rivalries in the sport's history, it has also created barriers for new entrants. Despite younger members of the family stepping away from the business, it remains difficult for outsiders to get sponsorships and get into the sport and more specifically the Cup Series. In her interview, Kelley Earnhardt Miller stressed this point while also mentioning the need for the sport to grow and evolve.