“I was pretty floored”: Kelley Earnhardt makes candid admission about Rick Hendrick’s unexpected JR Motorsports decision

On a recent episode of the podcast Business of Motorsports, Kelley Earnhardt expressed her surprise at Rick Hendrick's decision to join up with Junior Motorsports in 2008. The move saw the Hall of Famer become co-owners with Kelley and her brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Kelley Earnhardt, CEO of JR Motorsports, hosted the owner of Hendrick Motorsports on her podcast where they were discussing Hendrick's leadership in the automotive business and how his efforts have culminated in the ventures he has now. Speaking with the 75-year-old, Earnhardt highlighted the time when her brother had just joined the Hendrick Motorsports team being the same time that the Xfinity teams had also partnered up.

Their partnership enabled JR Motorsports to recieve engineering and chassis support from the older team. Speaking about the beginning of the partnership, Earnhardt said:

“I was pretty floored that you gave us the opportunity to take your team from Hendrick Motorsports at the time the five car [team], bring it up here to Mooresville, and merge it with our one-car team” [17:06]

Following this, Kelley Earnhardt also spoke about how this led to a challenge for her:

"I had never managed a large group of people."

To deal with this, she took inspiration from how Hendrick deals with his employees and said:

"People first mentality" [17:40]

The NASCAR Xfinity Series 2024 season saw JR Motorsports take home the championship, with their driver Justin Allgaier crossing the line to get them their first championship since 2018.

---

How Hendrick feels about Kelley Earnhardt managing JR Motorsports

Later on in their conversation, Rick Hendrick also took a moment to speak about his feelings of Kelley Earnhardt's management of the team. The NASCAR Hall Of Famer had good things to say about her management of the team.

In discussing his feelings about joining with Dale & Kelley Earnhardt and the subsequent results, Hendrick said:

“I was excited for us coming together and to be honest with you, you've done a lot better job of running an Xfinity team than I was doing and look at your success and work ethic.” [18:18]

He also added:

“You run the best Xfinity organization in racing and I've been just very fortunate to be on your coattail here.” [19:18]

Since their merger in 2008, the JR Motorsports team has seen them bag 4 championships and 88 wins, starting with driver Mark Martin's win for the team at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.