Dale Earnhardt Jr. got NASCAR fans hearts racing when he said his wife, Amy, suggested he should run the Daytona 500 again.
Earnhardt retired from the Cup Series at the end of the 2017 season and hasn’t been back since, except as the owner of the JR Motorsports No. 40 Chevrolet that Justin Allgaier drove in the Daytona 500 the past two years. His excitement at being involved in The Great American Race is what prompted her to mention it.
Earnhardt, 51, has been in a few O’Reilly Auto Parts Series races during his semi-retirement, the last being Bristol in 2024, but has no plans to get back into a Cup Series car and he explained why on the couple’s Bless Your ‘Hardt podcast.
“I have never raced the Next Gen car, I’ve never been in that car,” he explained. “You have to be freaking badass to be there and know where all every square inch of that car is as you’re traveling around the track.
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“I think you need to be doing it every week to be able to be as sharp as you’re going to want to be. I don’t want to do this unless I can be as good as I remember being,” he said, noting that even Allgaier, a full-time O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver had trouble in the Daytona 500.
The Next Gen car is significantly different from both the sixth generation Cup series car and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series car as it has a fully independent suspension, lower profile tires, rack-and-pinion steering and other unique features.
“I feel like that it’s naive to think you can just jump in a Cup car and go, go run well in the Daytona 500 not having driven one in almost eight years, nine years.”
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