"It's been harder for us to get to this point" - Dale Jr. comes clean on continuing Earnhardt legacy as JRM enters NASCAR Cup Series

NASCAR legend and Xfinity Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently opened up about how difficult it has been for him and his sister Kelly Earnhardt to continue the legacy of the Earnhardt name in the Cup Series. Dale Jr. has long had the dream to turn JR Motorsports into a Cup team but he shared that things have been very hard for him and Kelly. However, now that his team is finally making its Cup debut at the Daytona 500, he couldn't be happier.

JR Motorsports first started competing in the NXS in 2005 and has been a hugely successful team, winning 4 drivers' championships and 90 wins in over 600 starts. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr. always wanted JRM to compete in the NCS. In a recent conversation with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, he was asked what it meant to him to finally call himself a Cup Series team owner.

"I felt like it would have happened sooner, and it's been harder for us to get to this point than I believed it would have been. You know, we got into the XFINITY series, and we raced there for a while, and we thought, you know, we'll get to Cup one day. It'll happen, it'll make sense, and things will come together. And it just wasn't happening," Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared.

He went on to explain that he had started to think that JRM would never get to the Cup Series and that he and his sister would have to be content with the success they have achieved in the NXS.

"And so I was thinking, Shoot, maybe it's never going to happen for us. I needed to then, accept, like, Hey, we got a great thing going on in the XFINITY series. We have a great business. We do great things. We have a lot of great success stories, not just on the track, but with people and partners and that had to fill the bucket. But we came here this week, and we got a taste of this. And it's really, really good, and it's better and cooler than I ever could imagine," he added.

Dale Jr. was extremely happy when his driver Justin Allgaier secured JRM's spot on the Daytona 500 starting grid in the first qualifying Duel.

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Justin Allgaier wants Dale Earnhardt Jr. to talk to him more during the 2025 Daytona 500

During the qualifying Duel, Dale Earnhardt Jr. could be heard talking to Justin Allgaier over the team radio as his driver was trying to make JRM's first Cup Series start official by qualifying on the starting grid.

During media interaction after the qualifying Duels, Dale Jr. was asked if he intends to keep a line open between himself and his driver for the main event on Sunday.

"Oddly, man, I feel totally uncomfortable doing that on the Xfinity radios because I’m around that group so closely. I don’t like to get in their way, the crew chiefs, and so forth. They have a plan. They talk. They spend the whole year, like, planning and game-planning. Who is this guy talking? We got a plan, okay? I kind of don’t want to. This has been ours. We’ve done this. This thing felt like I could just jump right in there," Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained (21:30).

Allgaier, who will pilot JRM's No. 40 Chevrolet Camaro in the Daytona 500 mentioned that he was happy to hear his boss being excited and letting his feelings known on the radio. He also said that he would be kind of upset if Dale Jr. wouldn't do the same on Sunday.

"I’ll be upset if he doesn’t. How about that?" Allgaier remarked when Dale Earnhardt Jr. said that he would talk a lot during the race.

Allgaier will start the Daytona 500 from the tenth row alongside JGR driver Christopher Bell and has made it plenty clear that he is going to go for nothing less than a win at the Great American Race.