Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t planning on competing in the Xfinity Series during the 2025 season, he stated on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Since retiring from full-time NASCAR competition at the conclusion of the 2017 Cup Series season, Earnhardt has ran at least one Xfinity Series race each season. In 2023, he competed in a pair of events.
“I’m not planning on racing next year,” Earnhardt stated. “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.
“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 has 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 reiterated that should a partner come to JRM and ask him to race in select events in order to package the deal to another driver, he’d be open to doing so.
“If a partner comes together with a package that helps one of the other cars fill out multiple races that we have some inventory, I’m absolutely on board to race for that reason alone,” he added. “I’m not against it all. Right now, we don’t have any responsibility that is requiring me to run that race next year to continue that partnership. I’m going to see how badly I miss it. I figure I only have a handful of these years left to be relatively competitive.”
Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol will be his first NASCAR start since last October at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Last fall at Bristol, he led 47 laps after starting 15th and then the No. 88 Chevrolet caught fire inside the cockpit and finished 30th.
Earnhardt has four top-five finishes in seven Xfinity starts since retiring from full-time NASCAR competition. He has won two championships (1998, 1999) and is tied for 11th on the all-time win’s list with 24. In 146 career starts, he has a 16.4 win percentage.