It is going to take the right set of circumstances and partners for JR Motorsports to expand into the NASCAR Cup Series someday but Dale Earnhardt Jr. says he is not completely shutting the doors to the idea.
Earnhardt has made it very clear where his previous expansion missteps were made and why nothing has changed on that front. Speaking on his Dale Jr Download podcast on Tuesday, Earnhardt says the buy in price for him to even have a single car on the grid just doesn’t make sense for him and his family.
“They’re just too expensive,” Earnhardt said. “Right now, the business model looks terrible. […] When that all gets resolved, the value will then pop a little bit. And I think it just continues to grow annually as it naturally has. Right?
“Charters were selling for $2 million, $6 million, $12 million, $20 million, 30, and $40 million. And now they’ve kind of ratcheted back down just a, just a little bit. But, because I felt like that that was probably more rare if they’re selling for $25-30 million, I feel like that’s probably a more realistic value of the charter.”
Earnhardt has expressed regret over not acquiring a charter when the buy-in price was in the single digit millions but that time has long passed. Now, Earnhardt just isn’t willing to spend $30 million for the reasons he was not willing to spend a couple million several years ago.
Family.
“Personally, I would rather do something else with that money for the benefit of my girls,” Earnhardt said of daughters Isla and Nicole. “And so I can take that and … there’s a lot of investments and opportunities, right? … I’m not buying a charter and putting millions of dollars away into something that I can’t then recoup or sell for a profit. …
“You know, we’ve, we’ve always raced to go win a race and compete, not, you know, not thinking about it as a way to profit. So I can do that with other investments or whatever for my girls and yeah.”
And by the way, that $30 million number is just the buy-in to get into the door to have a single entry. Then they would have to afford numerous $350,000 race cars and the salaries for everyone who works on it in addition to a driver.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, or that there isn’t a way for Earnhardt to have a car on the grid, but it’s going to take a partnership, an investor, but also someone who is willing to give the Earnhardts the kind of control they have with their Xfinity Series team.
It would have to be something like 23XI Racing where Michael Jordan and Curtis Polk fund the team but also allow Denny Hamlin to make large executive decisions over competition matters.
“Kelley (Earnhardt-Miller, sister) and I have talked about getting into it and we’ve seen some opportunities to do that but it didn’t work out,” Earnhardt said. “We’re still at the table, talking to different teams about maybe partnering or investing.
“We’re always open to hearing what someone thinks about our idea of a partnership, but none of them have been like, ‘that’s it, that’s a perfect match man.’ That is what we’re looking for.
“For the longest time, Kelley and I thought we wanted to own and operate a team so trying to part from that is tough. If we do it with a partner, we’re not going to be making any decisions.
“As the price continues to go up, it gets harder to make that commitment. It is a large amount of money to send off and never see it again. It’s not like you send that money off and 10 years later, it’s like ‘alright guys, I had fun, give me my money back.’
So, they’re not spending that money in that way.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.