Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to Jim France fielding a car in NASCAR race, questions timing on pause

Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his thoughts on the report of NASCAR co-owner and CEO Jim France coming close to fielding a car in the Cup Series. On Dale Jr. Download, Earnhardt questioned the timing of France putting a stop to fielding a car operated by Spire Motorsports.

“This idea of Jim France getting Spire to do this deal so he could run this driver, all of this has been probably worked on for a month, two months, maybe more,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “They were probably planning this, maybe they saw what went down at [IndyCar] and had second thoughts.

“I’m certain they saw what went down in Indy and thought, ‘Let’s rethink this. Should we do this? Should we not?’ I agree. It’s problematic at Indy at the level. It’s a tough thing to navigate where Penske is competing, but also the owner of the Series.”

Why Jim France squashed the plan to field a car in the NASCAR Cup Series

Earnhardt added: “The thing about Roger Penske is he has so much respect amongst the industry. This is not a great time in the industry for Jim with the lawsuit. Is this an issue if everybody, the industry leaders and the charter owners all thought everything was going perfectly? Would they mind then if Jim ran an open car with this guy through Spire? Probably not. That’s why Roger Penske has been able to get to this point at least without any issue.”

Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic reported last week that Jim France was near a deal to fund a car in an upcoming series race before backlash in the garage scrapped those plans. France was set to financially support an entry for the Cup road-course race in July at Sonoma Raceway. Jack Aitken was scheduled to be the driver.

Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson confirmed the plans but said France would not have fielded the car directly. It was intended to be a Spire entry staffed by Spire personnel.

“I didn’t really even think it was that big of a deal,” Dickerson said. “I didn’t even think it was that deep.” Gluck and Bianchi said that many in the garage were uncomfortable with the idea of competing against someone who also owned the series, as it could lead to a potential conflict of interest. France and NASCAR have not commented on the story.