Dale Earnhardt Jr. will serve as crew chief for Connor Zilisch’s JR Motorsports car in Saturday’s Xfinity race at Pocono Raceway, the team announced Wednesday.
Crew chief Mardy Lindley will serve a one-race suspension this week because the team had two lug nuts not safe and secure after the Nashville race earlier this month.
The penalty was deferred, allowing Lindley to be with the team last weekend at Mexico.
With Lindley serving the penalty, Earnhardt will be atop the pit box and listed as the No. 88 team’s crew chief. It will mark Earnhardt’s first time as crew chief in a NASCAR national series event.
Earnhardt will be at Pocono as a member of the Prime broadcast crew for the Cup race. His JR Motorsports organization celebrated its seventh victory of the season last weekend with Daniel Suarez winning in Mexico City. That victory was the 95th for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series. Only three teams have topped 100 Xfinity wins: Joe Gibbs Racing (217 wins)m, RFK Racing (138) and Richard Childress Racing (100).
Earnhardt made 35 Cup starts at Pocono in his career, winning twice. He had 15 top-10 finishes.
Zilisch enters this weekend fifth in the series standings. He has one win this season. That came at Circuit of the Americas on March 1.
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