![Dale Earnhardt Jr]()
Could Junior be strapping into a NASCAR race car for the final time tonight?
15-time most popular driver
Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired from full-time racing in 2017, and hasn't returned to the NASCAR Cup Series since. But he's come out of retirement once or twice a year to run a race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for his own team, JR Motorsports.
Despite not racing full time, Junior has proven that he can still be competitive in NASCAR's lower series. He finished 5th at Homestead last year, and led 47 laps at Bristol before his car caught fire while battling for the lead.
Earnhardt will once again hop behind the wheel at the half-mile bullring tonight, as the Xfinity Series returns to Bristol for the Food City 300. But ahead of the race, Junior is acknowledging that it might be his last.
As in years past, Junior's ride tonight will be sponsored by Hellman's, a longtime sponsor for JRM. The sponsor typically requests the team owner to run a race or two a year - but right now, there are no plans in place for 2025 or beyond.
Junior still races late-model cars, and he recently spoke on his podcast
The Dale Jr. Download that he may instead turn his focus to that rather than making his one-off Xfinity Series starts:
"Everybody's like, 'Is this really your last race?' I'm like, 'Mmm, probably, yeah pretty sure.' I'm gonna keep running my late-model for a little while."
It's no surprise that Junior is close to stepping away from racing in NASCAR for good. He's nearly 50 years old at this point, and has spent most of his life around the sport. And at this point, he's really got nothing to prove other than going out there and having some fun - which it sounds like he's doing with his late-model cars.
But still, Junior admits that he's going to miss making his occasional NASCAR start - and isn't ruling out the possibility that he's still got a couple more left in him:
"I'm not planning on racing next year. I'd 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 for anything that might be beneficial to JR Motorsports...
I don't have a requirement to run next year, so I may just not do it and sort of - 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.
Right now I don't have any plans, but that's kind of the way I like it...
I'm just going to see how badly I miss it. I figure I only got a handful of these years left to be relatively, somewhat competitive. But I'm gonna be fine. I found what I love, to be honest with you, driving that late-model stock car. I mean, the things that I'll enjoy tonight are there as well."
https://twitter.com/bobpockrass/status/1837174499008995602
I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether Junior really does decide to hang it up in NASCAR tonight.
