DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt Miller faced nearly every emotion over the first two days of Daytona Speedweeks.
Excitement, enthusiasm, anticipation heading into Wednesday night’s single-car qualifying session.
Dread, anxiety, fear after their No. 40 Chevrolet was not fast enough to lock into the Daytona 500 on speed.
But on Thursday, the JR Motorsports co-owners were rewarded with elation after Justin Allgaier finished ninth in the first Duel at Daytona Thursday night, the highest of the five Open entries — securing JRM’s inaugural spot on the NASCAR Cup Series grid in Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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The waning moments of the 60-lap qualifying race stuck Allgaier in a precarious situation, running three-wide with fellow Open entries Martin Truex Jr. and J.J. Yeley with just five laps to go. With Michael McDowell and Josh Berry in tow, Allgaier rocketed to the top lane and surged into the top 10, earning the Earnhardt duo their first Cup start in the “Great American Race.” Allgaier will start 19th in the No. 40 car.
Earnhardt, a two-time winner of the Daytona 500 and longtime co-owner of his Xfinity team, admitted Thursday he has tried to “downplay” how badly he wants JR Motorsports to race in the Cup Series. The journey of attempting to qualify for Sunday’s 200-lap feature has only emphasized how badly he wants a car of his own at the sport’s top level.
“Man, we got here and we got a taste of it, and holy moly,” Earnhardt said. “(Wednesday) was so disappointing. I didn’t really know exactly how badly I wanted to do this or wanted to be a part of something like this until we started going through it, and yesterday was just so tough to understand. Something as simple as just being 0.008 (seconds) too slow was really hard to understand, and it’s hard to accept.
“And so (I’ve) just been sitting here all day thinking about how badly I wanted this for all of us. And we asked Justin to go on this journey with us. And he as the driver has to shoulder a lot of the pressure, more pressure than anyone. (Crew chief) Greg Ives agreed to do this with us, and he has had to handle so much pressure to try to put this thing in the field, and I wanted it for everybody that was feeling all of that. And Kelley said it. We race. We love to race, and racing is hard, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This was rough emotionally, but damn it, it’s fun when it works out.”
Earnhardt has carried an enormous amount of enthusiasm throughout the experience, joining the No. 40 crew in the garage when it opened at 6 a.m. ET Wednesday. He and many, if not all, members of JRM’s front office have lived every moment of this attempt. The emotional toll has not been light — rivaling even the ups and downs of Allgaier’s Xfinity Series championship effort in November at Phoenix Raceway — but the reward has justified the nerves.
“Look, this might not seem as big to some other people in the room and even some people outside of this room,” Earnhardt said. “But I know how it feels internally for me, and I think everybody here is experiencing the same thing emotionally. We kept telling ourselves, like, man, if it was easy, it wouldn’t matter as much. And not that we want it to be as hard as it possibly can, but damn, it makes it rewarding when you finally get what you’re looking for. And that’s racing.”
The son and daughter of seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt — known affectionately as “The Intimidator” — that gritty determination is a built-in feature of Earnhardt and Earnhardt Miller.
“In our DNA is to earn it, and that’s how we were brought up with Dad,” Earnhardt Miller said. “And I think everything that we do, you put that hard work in and it feels better to earn success.”
“I tell myself sometimes I’m a fool to come into these race tracks and think this stuff’s going to be handed over just because of what we’ve done or where we’ve been in the past,” Earnhardt Jr. added. “It doesn’t care, and it didn’t care this week. We had to dig.”
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A key part of JR Motorsports’ effort to make the “Great American Race” was and is its alliance with Hendrick Motorsports. After his television interview, Earnhardt celebrated the moment with former teammate and current Hendrick vice chairman Jeff Gordon and team president Jeff Andrews, sharing the jubilation together. In that moment, Gordon told Earnhardt his “enthusiasm is contagious.”
“It just goes to show you how much this sport and this race means to him,” Gordon told NASCAR.com. “I never realized that when you’re driving, you just feel like there’s never going to be anything that compares to it. But when you put an effort, you see the people working hard, and you see what it takes to put something together like this, and then it work out well, it’s a lot to be proud of and you get to enjoy being a part of that. But he’s been texting and it’s just been amazing how involved he’s been and how excited he’s been for this moment.”
The primary sponsor of the No. 40 Chevrolet is Traveller Whiskey, a brand owned by Chris Stapleton, who has been integral in the entire Daytona 500 mission. Stapleton, a country music star, and Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick share a “great relationship,” Gordon explained, through which the genesis of this ride sparked. Stapleton and Hendrick developed a friendship through Hendrick’s love of music, specifically Stapleton’s library.
“With him wanting to promote his brand now, he reached out to Mr. Hendrick,” Gordon said. “The next thing you know, here we are.”
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Even Gordon — a four-time Cup champion, three-time Daytona 500 winner and leader of a four-car, title-contending organization — felt the weight of what JRM’s effort meant to all parties involved.
“Pressure. There was pressure,” Gordon said. “I mean, you don’t want to disappoint. We take a lot of pride in the relationship that we have with JR Motorsports. We think of them as family, and they’ve done a lot for us, developing people and drivers and things along the way. But this has been different.”
Allgaier felt every bit of that through Thursday’s race — the grand scope of the hands and hearts poured into this project.
“I don’t know why this feels different, why this is more emotional, why this is more pressure and stress,” he said. “I mean, I think for me, I just don’t want to let Dale down. I don’t want to let Kelley down. I don’t want to let our fans down. Chris Stapleton has been extremely excited about this project with Traveller Whiskey. He’s coming on Sunday, hopefully, and I didn’t want to him to show up and not have a car in the field, right? That’d be pretty weird.
“But honestly, those last two laps, I thought we were wrecking on the back straightaway. I think the 10 (Ty Dillon) pulled up maybe in front of the 16 (Allmendinger) and got into the wall, and I thought it was game over. But, you know, Michael kept pushing, and I think Josh was behind Michael. Just kept pushing, and coming across the line was like this relief that — I don’t even know if I got that same relief winning the championship last fall. I don’t know. It seems fairly weird, but you’re proud of the effort, proud of the team.”