Kelley Earnhardt reflects back, looks ahead (cont'd)

Q: You haven't named a driver for your No. 88 Chevrolet entry in the Nationwide Series for next year yet. Is it difficult lining that up when you're not yet sure what the rules for that series will be next year in regards to Cup drivers, etc.?

Earnhardt: From an economic standpoint, it takes a personality to sell a sponsor -- and performance, and being up front, and being someone you can market, someone the consumers are going to recognize and want to be a part of what they're doing. We're lucky in the fact that when people come along like Brad [Keselowski] and Martin Truex [Jr.] and people that Dale takes under his wing that are kind of under an umbrella that he's standing under, get that extra attention a lot of times. That's good for us and for our company. So we have a better sale of a younger driver than most teams do.

Thirteen drivers have combined to drive JR Motorsports' two Nationwide cars this season.

JR Motorsports

2010 Drivers

Driver	7	88
Steve Arpin	5	1
Kelly Bires	0	5
Landon Cassill	3	0
Dale Jr.	0	1
Ron Fellows	0	1
J.R. Fitzpatrick	1	0
Jamie McMurray	0	7
Danica Patrick	5	0
Coleman Pressley	0	2
Greg Sacks	0	1
Elliott Sadler	0	1
Scott Wimmer	2	0
Josh Wise	3	0

I don't think teams will be able to just take a kid right off the street and sell him on sponsorship at this level. We've got to do a lot of other things from the standpoint of controlling our costs. You can't sell $6 million or $7 million worth of sponsorship on Brad Coleman and these guys. They've got talent, no doubt about it; but until they get on the race track and prove it and get some dollars behind them, you know, it all just works in a big circle.

Q: You've said Aric Almirola could be "in the mix" to drive the No. 88 Nationwide car next year. What about current JR Motorsports part-time drivers Steve Arpin and Josh Wise?

Earnhardt: With Steve and Josh, we're lucky this year -- not in the fact that we don't have sponsors, but lucky in the fact that because we didn't we can use that on the 7 car to develop young drivers [when Danica Patrick isn't driving it in the races sponsored by GoDaddy.com]. We were going to run that car all year long and we don't have to go to a sponsor and say, 'Hey, do you want to take a chance on Steve Arpin? Do you want to take a chance on Josh Wise?' JR Motorsports is taking that chance. Had we had a sponsor for the full year, they might not have wanted to do that.

You can ask [crew chiefs] Tony [Eury] Jr. and Tony [Eury] Sr. for their opinions, because they're with them week in and week out. But they're still getting in the car every weekend, so that's a positive from my standpoint. They're both great kids. Steve is great with sponsors, he's marketable, he's got a great personality -- and Josh is the same way. It's just that nobody knows them.

And Steve actually, from his dirt late model and all that, he's actually got all these sponsors that are talking with him and whatnot. So there's some action there and things going on.

• Almirola to drive No. 88 at ORP

Q: Where do you see the Nationwide Series going with all the changes that are being discussed, such as possibly limiting Cup drivers' involvement in it?

Earnhardt: It's going to be like this -- timing and all the parties willing to give in to something. Because it's going to take that to come up with a good solution. The owners are going to have to give; NASCAR is going to have to give; everybody is going to have to give for us to come up with a solution that will work.

It's not going to do us any good to throw the Cup drivers out. That's not going to fix it. It's going to have to be a multitude of things.

Q: You've repeatedly said JR Motorsports has no imminent plans to move into Cup racing. Why not?

Earnhardt: It's a $7 million to $25 million decision. I don't know. There are a lot of zeroes in there. If it was a $7 million to a $12-13 million decision, it might be different. But we definitely don't want to be a start-and-park team in the Cup Series, or be half-sponsored. None of that.

We're proud of our brand at JR Motorsports, and Dale. Just like [with the one-time running of the No. 3 car], we don't want to put ourselves out there for anything but first place.