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Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car makes the 500, heartfelt emotions spill: 'Daddy loved Daytona'

Alex Zietlow, The Charlotte Observer on

Published in Auto Racing

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — He didn’t finish first, but you would’ve thought Justin Allgaier won the whole thing.

There were other celebrations going on the front-stretch and in Victory Lane. Bubba Wallace won the first Duel race at Daytona International Speedway, fist-pumping the crowd as he stood on his car after his win at the start-finish line. Austin Cindric celebrated similarly after the second Duel race Thursday night — happy knowing that he’d done what he could during the week’s qualifying sessions to set him up nicely for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

But if you peered out on pit road on Thursday night, at the right moment after Duel race No. 1, you’d see a commotion encircling Allgaier who finished P9: a sea of cameras and personnel descending on the 40 team’s car — an unchartered open car, no less — one that needed to finish better than the other open cars in its heat to lock it into the Great American Race.

And once all the cameras were rolling, you saw why everyone was there. They were there to see Dale Earnhardt Jr., the JR Motorsports team owner of that 40 team, slice through the big crowd and give Allgaier a bear hug to celebrate something that rang loudly across the enterprise of motorsport on Thursday night:

The Earnhardt family is back in the NASCAR Cup Series.

”Man, we have kind of tried to downplay how badly we want to race in the Cup Series,” Earnhardt Jr. told reporters on Thursday night. “At least I have. It’s like one of them things where you are like, ‘Man, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’ I’m not going to make it drag down all the other great things happening in my world, but man, we got here, and we got a taste of it. Holy moly, [Wednesday] was so disappointing (when they didn’t qualify on speed). I didn’t 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. ...

“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.”

To understand why it was rough emotionally, consider their family story and how it intertwines with NASCAR.

Not many other families are more closely associated with American stock car racing. No other name is more connected to the triumphs and tragedies that Daytona International Speedway has played host to. The highest high came in 1998, Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s first Daytona 500 victory after 20 years of trying. The lowest low came in 2001, the race where Earnhardt crashed into the wall on the last lap of the 500 and never climbed out of the car, shocking the sport and the nation.

On Thursday, the whole Earnhardt family celebrated the slim qualification that felt like a victory. Dale Jr., himself, joked when asked to explain his relationship with Daytona — a place he vacationed as a kid, a place he won at as a driver, a place he learned how to return to and embrace, even after his father’s death.

“I probably need a psychiatrist to describe it, but I’m not ...” Earnhardt began. “You know, Daddy loved Daytona. And loved winning here. He just loved to win any race here. He loved to add to that number, whatever it was, 36 wins.

“Gosh, I loved coming here as a kid, but just a lot of great memories. Then when he passed away, I had to make a decision. I had a career in front of me. I was coming back multiple times, and I had to figure out a way to be OK with it.

“I knew that it wasn’t the track that took him. And I knew that he, wherever he was, still felt the same about Daytona. So I’ve embraced it. Him losing his life in this property brought this property closer to me. Now, that doesn’t work the same for other people and tragedy. But for me knowing I had to keep coming here, I made some peace with it and embraced the track and love it.”

Earnhardt Jr. then asked an unanswerable question:

“Where else do you go and barely make the field and cry tears of joy?” the two-time Daytona 500 winner said. “Nowhere. There’s some relief, but this is incredible. I think that’s — that helps you measure the importance of the race and how big it is to me, anyway.”

Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, the CEO of JR Motorsports and sister of Dale, had similar emotions spill post-race. While Dale sat in the pit box during the first duel, funneling information to Allgaier via headset, Kelley was further away, screaming all 60 laps, wondering aloud why Allgaier’s crew chief Greg Ives kept insisting Allgaier file down pit road for new tires just as Allgaier was settling in, finding a rhythm.

 

She had a cathartic smile afterward, though.

“Just seeing the wins with Dad and how hard he worked to conquer this track after so many years, and being here for Dale’s wins,” Earnhardt-Miller said. “I mean, Dale said it best. There’s just no better place than this racetrack. This is the crown jewel of everything that we do.

“This is the start of everything that we do. This is the big race that everybody wants to make, and here we are sitting here. We’re about to start our first one.”

What made the emotions fresher, the relief even more satisfying, was that the final two laps were tricky. Allgaier — by virtue of dodging wrecks and relying on instincts as he made his moves from the back of the pack to the middle — found himself in a three-wide shoving match in the final two laps of the heat race. Race cars got loose. Tires and hopes shook.

“Honestly, those last two laps, I thought we were wrecking on the back straightaway,” Allgaier said. “I think the 10 (Ty Dillon) pulled up in front of the 16 (AJ Allmendinger) and got into the wall, and I thought it was game over. Michael (McDowell) kept pushing, and I think Josh (Berry) was behind Michael, right, and just kept pushing.”

But then, mercifully, the checkered flag swooped down. And they were safe. There was relief.

Allgaier and the Earnhardts didn’t win the Daytona 500. That comes Sunday. Allgaier will start that race in P19.

They didn’t even win the Duel race they ran in on Thursday.

But they won nonetheless.

So, it seemed, did the rest of the sport.

“This might not seem as big to some other people in the room and even some people outside of this room, but I know how it feels internally for me, and I think everybody here is experiencing the same thing emotionally,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We kept telling ourselves, ‘Man, if it was easy, it wouldn’t matter as much, you know?’ Not that we want it to be as hard as it possibly can.

“But damn it, it makes it rewarding when you finally get what you’re looking for.”

Starting lineup for the 2025 Daytona 500

The Daytona 500 will begin just after 2:30 p.m. Sunday on FOX.

PositionDriverCar No.1Chase Briscoe192Austin Cindric23Bubba Wallace234Erik Jones435William Byron246Chris Buescher177Ty Dillon108Denny Hamlin119Ross Chastain110Joey Logano2211Tyler Reddick4512Corey LaJoie113AJ Allmendinger1614Todd Gilliland3415Austin Dillon316Ryan Blaney1217Chase Elliott918John Hunter Nemechek4219Justin Allgaier4020Christopher Bell2021Kyle Busch822Kyle Larson523Ty Gibbs5424Riley Herbst3525Michael McDowell7126Shane van Gisbergen8827Ryan Preece6028Cody Ware5129Josh Berry2130Cole Custer4131Ricky Stenhouse Jr.4732Noah Gragson433Carson Hocevar7734Brad Keselowski635Justin Haley736Daniel Suarez9937Zane Smith3838Alex Bowman4839Martin Truex Jr.5640Jimmie Johnson8441Helio Castroneves91


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