Intentionally or unintentionally, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stirred up social media into a frenzy with a portion of this week’s Dale Jr. Download.
In the episode, titled “It Felt Like An Old Daytona Race,” Earnhardt, who hasn’t competed in the NASCAR Cup Series since the 2017 season, said that after the 2026 Daytona 500, his wife, Amy, suggested that he should run the event next season in the JR Motorsports entry.
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“Amy told me I should run the Daytona 500 next year,” Earnhardt revealed on the Dale Jr. Download.
Which elicited a response of, “Really?” from the staff on his show.
Earnhardt responded, “Yeah. I was like, what?”
The NASCAR Hall of Famer continued, “We were laying in bed Sunday night after the race, and she was like, ‘You should just drive it next year,’ and I’m like, ‘Hello? Pardon me? What’d you say? Are you okay?'”
After the episode went live, social media was buzzing about a potential return to the Great American Race for Earnhardt, the 2004 and 2014 winner of the iconic event. However, as things started to build on X, Earnhardt snuffed out the flames that had been stoked.
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In a response to the question of if we could possibly see Earnhardt driving the JR Motorsports entry in the Daytona 500 in 2027, Earnhardt responded, “I only wanted folks to know Amy wasn’t to blame for my retirement back in the day. I felt she got some unnecessary blame back then. I won’t be racing cup but she’s not the reason.”
So, while it would be cool to see Earnhardt return to a race that means so much to his family, the legendary driver has no intention to compete as a driver in the 2027 Daytona 500, and he took it a step further by saying he has no intention to compete again in the NASCAR Cup Series.
JR Motorsports, which fields one of the most potent teams in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, has competed in the Daytona 500 in each of the last two seasons. In the team’s first-ever NASCAR Cup Series start a season ago, Justin Allgaier made the field for the Daytona 500 and would go on to score an impressive ninth-place finish.
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In last weekend’s Daytona 500, Allgaier, the 2024 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion, reprised his role as the driver of the No. 40 JR Motorsports Chevrolet. And while the race ended with a disappointing 38th-place finish after Allgaier triggered a large crash in the second Stage of the race, Allgaier did lead the race for three laps, marking the first laps led in a NASCAR Cup Series event for the storied race team.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/onsi/racing-america as Will Dale Earnhardt Jr. Compete In the 2027 Daytona 500?.
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