Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car makes the 500, heartfelt emotions spill: ‘Daddy loved Daytona’

He didn’t finish first, but you would’ve thought Justin Allgaier won the whole thing.

There were other celebrations going on the front-stretch and in Victory Lane. Bubba Wallace won the first Duel race at Daytona International Speedway, fist-pumping the crowd as he stood on his car after his win at the start-finish line. Austin Cindric celebrated similarly after the second Duel race Thursday night — happy knowing that he’d done what he could during the week’s qualifying sessions to set him up nicely for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

But if you peered out on pit road on Thursday night, at the right moment after Duel race No. 1, you’d see a commotion encircling Allgaier who finished P9: a sea of cameras and personnel descending on the 40 team’s car — an unchartered open car, no less — one that needed to finish better than the other open cars in its heat to lock it into the Great American Race.

And once all the cameras were rolling, you saw why everyone was there. They were there to see Dale Earnhardt Jr., the JR Motorsports team owner of that 40 team, slice through the big crowd and give Allgaier a bear hug to celebrate something that rang loudly across the enterprise of motorsport on Thursday night:

The Earnhardt family is back in the NASCAR Cup Series.

”Man, we have kind of tried to downplay how badly we want to race in the Cup Series,” Earnhardt Jr. told reporters on Thursday night. “At least I have. It’s like one of them things where you are like, ‘Man, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.’ I’m not going to make it drag down all the other great things happening in my world, but man, we got here, and we got a taste of it. Holy moly, yesterday was so disappointing (when they didn’t qualify on speed). I didn’t know exactly how badly I wanted to do this or wanted to be a part of something like this until we started going through it. ...

“We love to race, and racing is hard, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. This was rough emotionally, but damn it, it’s fun when it works out.”

To understand why it was rough emotionally, consider their family story and how it intertwines with NASCAR.

Not many other families are more closely associated with American stock car racing. No other name is more connected to the triumphs and tragedies that Daytona International Speedway has played host to. The highest high came in 1998, Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s first Daytona 500 victory after 20 years of trying. The lowest low came in 2001, the race where Earnhardt crashed into the wall on the last lap of the 500 and never climbed out of the car, shocking the sport and the nation.

On Thursday, the whole Earnhardt family celebrated the slim qualification that felt like a victory. Dale Jr., himself, joked when asked to explain his relationship with Daytona — a place he vacationed as a kid, a place he won at as a driver, a place he learned how to return to and embrace, even after his father’s death.

“I probably need a psychiatrist to describe it, but I’m not...” Earnhardt began. “You know, Daddy loved Daytona. And loved winning here. He just loved to win any race here. He loved to add to that number, whatever it was, 36 wins.

“Gosh, I loved coming here as a kid, but just a lot of great memories. Then when he passed away, I had to make a decision. I had a career in front of me. I was coming back multiple times, and I had to figure out a way to be OK with it.

“I knew that it wasn’t the track that took him. And I knew that he, wherever he was, still felt the same about Daytona. So I’ve embraced it. Him losing his life in this property brought this property closer to me. Now, that doesn’t work the same for other people and tragedy. But for me knowing I had to keep coming here, I made some peace with it and embraced the track and love it.”

Earnhardt Jr. then asked an unanswerable question:

“Where else do you go and barely make the field and cry tears of joy?” the two-time Daytona 500 winner said. “Nowhere. There’s some relief, but this is incredible. I think that’s — that helps you measure the importance of the race and how big it is to me, anyway.”

Kelley Earnhardt-Miller, the CEO of JR Motorsports and sister of Dale, had similar emotions spill post-race. While Dale sat in the pit box during the first duel, funneling information to Allgaier via headset, Kelley was further away, screaming all 60 laps, wondering aloud why Allgaier’s crew chief Greg Ives kept insisting Allgaier file down pit road for new tires just as Allgaier was settling in, finding a rhythm.

She had a cathartic smile afterward, though.

“Just seeing the wins with Dad and how hard he worked to conquer this track after so many years, and being here for Dale’s wins,” Earnhardt-Miller said. “I mean, Dale said it best. There’s just no better place than this racetrack. This is the crown jewel of everything that we do.

“This is the start of everything that we do. This is the big race that everybody wants to make, and here we are sitting here. We’re about to start our first one.”

What made the emotions fresher, the relief even more satisfying, was that the final two laps were tricky. Allgaier — by virtue of dodging wrecks and relying on instincts as he made his moves from the back of the pack to the middle — found himself in a three-wide shoving match in the final two laps of the heat race. Race cars got loose. Tires and hopes shook.

“Honestly, those last two laps, I thought we were wrecking on the back straightaway,” Allgaier said. “I think the 10 (Ty Dillon) pulled up in front of the 16 (AJ Allmendinger) and got into the wall, and I thought it was game over. Michael (McDowell) kept pushing, and I think Josh (Berry) was behind Michael, right, and just kept pushing.”

But then, mercifully, the checkered flag swooped down. And they were safe. There was relief.

Allgaier and the Earnhardts didn’t win the Daytona 500. That comes Sunday. Allgaier will start that race in P19.

They didn’t even win the Duel race they ran in on Thursday.

But they won nonetheless.

So, it seemed, did the rest of the sport.

“This might not seem as big to some other people in the room and even some people outside of this room, but I know how it feels internally for me, and I think everybody here is experiencing the same thing emotionally,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We kept telling ourselves, ‘Man, if it was easy, it wouldn’t matter as much, you know?’ Not that we want it to be as hard as it possibly can.

“But damn it, it makes it rewarding when you finally get what you’re looking for.”

Six notes from the Thursday night’s Duel races

▪ Wallace won the first Duel race. The driver of the No. 23 car, after suffering some damage on Lap 14, proved resilient. He took ahold of the race in the final 30 laps, then outlasted William Byron, who finished second, and Ty Dillon, who finished third. Behind those three were several rows of three-wide fighters. Rounding out the Top 5 of Duel race No. 1: Ross Chastin (P4) and Tyler Reddick (P5).

▪ Austin Cindric won the second Duel race. The driver of the 2 car, and the 2022 Daytona 500 winner, didn’t think he won it originally, though. In fact, Erik Jones of Legacy Motor Club technically crossed the start-finish line first — but Cindric was ahead when a caution came out on the final lap, deeming Cindric the victor.

▪ It was a rough night for the open cars in Duel race No. 1. They all avoided the first carnage of the night, when Zane Smith’s right-front tire went down and saw him crashing into the wall by himself. But then enter Lap 14: Chandler Smith (open), in between Turns 1 and 2, tried to maneuver to the bottom of the racetrack when he swerved into Justin Haley, who then spun out of control and collected a few other cars in the carnage. That knocked Smith out of the race. Smith later said that his left mirror malfunctioned and thus didn’t see Haley and ultimately took the blame for the wreck.

▪ One of the cars collected in that Lap 14 wreck is Hélio Castoneves, the IndyCar superstar who’s running as Trackhouse Racing’s (open/unchartered) “Project 91” entry. Though he was knocked out early, his spot in the Great American Race was secure thanks to a new NASCAR rule for the 2025 season that created a provisional guaranteeing a spot to a “world-class driver” in every Cup race.

▪ Corey LaJoie was the final open car that raced his way into the Daytona 500 as another open unchartered car.

▪ The front row of the Daytona 500 wasn’t established Thursday night. That’s because it was cemented on Wednesday night during the single-car qualifying session, per Daytona 500 rules. Chase Briscoe will sit on the pole. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver delivered Toyota the manufacturer’s all-time first Daytona 500 pole. That’s some pretty remarkable history — even Briscoe was a bit taken aback Wednesday. The driver of the 19 car ducked out of Duel No. 1 early to preserve his pole-winning car. Cindric of Team Penske will start P2.

Starting lineup for the 2025 Daytona 500

The Daytona 500 will begin just after 2:30 p.m. Sunday on FOX.

This story was originally published February 13, 2025 at 11:10 PM with the headline "Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car makes the 500, heartfelt emotions spill: ‘Daddy loved Daytona’."

Alex Zietlow

The Charlotte Observer

Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the Pro Football Writers Association, the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned six APSE Top 10 distinctions for his coverage on a variety of topics, from billion-dollar stadium renovations to the small moments of triumph that helped a Panthers kicker defy the steepest odds in sports. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription