Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals motivation behind JRM returning to Daytona 500 after 'storybook' 2025

JR Motorsports is running it back in the 2026 Daytona 500. JRM announced last week it will attempt to make the field for the second consecutive season in NASCAR‘s ultimate Crown Jewel event.

JRM driver and 2024 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion Justin Allgaier, as he did back in February, will pilot the No. 40 Chevrolet in partnership with Chris Stapleton‘s Traveller Whiskey. Allgaier made the show and finished ninth in this year’s Daytona 500.

What’s the motivation behind doing it again this coming February? Well, simply put, they just want to race, Earnhardt said.

“Well, Kelley [Earnhardt Miller] will tell you that we race. We got a chance to go race, we race. We just wanna race,” Earnhardt said on Monday’s Dale Jr. Download. “The Daytona 500 is the most important race of the season, and I would say that it, for an open team or anybody that wants to enter the race, that probably is the best opportunity financially to do it and not lose money.

“It costs a significant amount of money to run any race, Talladega or whatever. If you wanna go run in the middle of the year or a couple races throughout the year, harder to make the financial work in them other events. This one, we’re just presented with opportunity to go do it. We got some partners that wanna go help us fund it.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sets expectations for JRM’s 2026 Daytona 500 run

The setup earlier this year had Allgaier in the driver’s seat with longtime crew chief Greg Ives sitting atop the pit box. If Earnhardt had it his way, the entire setup from Allgaier to Ives and on down, would remain the same.

“Our shop gets excited about it. They feel like it’s their effort,” Earnhardt said. “You see Rodney Childers chiming in on social media and you see our employees get pumped about the idea because it’s their car. It’s our flagship. But I will say this, more than likely, I don’t know for sure 100 percent, but if I had it my way, we would go with exactly the same components, people and personnel as we did last year.

“Justin’s gonna drive the car. Last year, we had Greg Ives as the crew chief. We had [Barry] Hoover come out of retirement, my old car chief guy. I would have everything as it was. That was a great, fun group of people. They all wanted to be there, they all cared about it. That hopefully comes together.”

While expectations might be heightened after a top 10 in JRM’s Cup Series debut, Earnhardt isn’t jumping that far ahead. The goal, as it was in 2025, is to get in the show first and go from there.

“You got to rein all the expectations back in to man, we just got to get in the show. Let’s get in the show. We’re not locked in,” Earnhardt said. “New body, don’t know how the car will qualify. We thought we were gonna do alright last year and we didn’t in qualifying. I’ll be apprehensive about our opportunity in just pure speed on qualifying. We may have to go back and race our way in.

“… You just want to get there and roll the car out for Sunday morning and put it on the grid. That’s a proud moment, pushing a car out on to the grid and standing there watching your driver. That’s a proud moment. … Hopefully we can go back. It’ll be hard to recreate the experience and the success we had last year. So, everybody will have to be realistic.”