Since retiring from the NASCAR Cup Series post-2017, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has maintained his NASCAR presence by running select NASCAR Xfinity Series events. After Friday’s Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway, that practice will halt — at least for the time being.
The 15-time winner of NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award confirmed Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway that he doesn’t have an Xfinity Series event on his racing schedule for the 2025 season, but didn’t rule out the idea of returning to the second-tier series at some point down the road.
“I’m not planning on racing next year,” Earnhardt said. “I’ll be foolish to say I’m never going to run again because I don’t know well enough to stay away from it, and I’ll probably miss it next year and be absolutely willing to sign up because of anything that might be beneficial to JR Motorsports.”
Since retiring from the NASCAR Cup Series, the owner of JR Motorsports has made one-off starts out of obligation to a sponsorship deal with Unilever and Hellman’s. With no such obligation in 2025, Earnhardt has decided to pause the second-tier series… but he’s realistic about the fact that he might get drawn back in, down the road.
“I have to remind fans and people that follow us that I run this race and have ran this race over the last several years because of the big benefit that it is to JR Motorsports. It’s a package deal where Hellman’s and Unilever have put their logos on Justin’s [Allgaier] car and it’s helped fill out that car. And I don’t have a requirement to run next year, so I may just not do it. And I will miss it terribly, regret that I didn’t race, and probably in 2026 find me somewhere that I can go compete in the Xfinity Series again. But right now, I don’t have any plans.”
Earnhardt is a two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series champion (1998, 1999), and in his 146 starts in the second-tier series has collected 24 victories, the latest of which was at Richmond Raceway in 2016, while driving an additional entry for JR Motorsports.
Since he retired from the Cup Series, Earnhardt has made seven starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, scoring four top-five and four top-10 finishes. Last Fall at Bristol, Earnhardt led 47 laps and was in contention for a victory before his car caught fire and ended his night prematurely.
