“Never Made Any Money Racing”: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Reality Check to NASCAR Owners Amid Charter Standoff

With charter negotiations between NASCAR and the Cup Series teams heading into oblivion, times are dire in the top tier. The teams are overloading the sanctioning body with complaints of financial losses amongst other issues and demanding a better share of the revenue that is generated. Meanwhile, JR Motorsports owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., like many others, finds himself in an estranged space looking at the drama.

In the latest episode of Dale Jr. Download, he dissected an article by Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck in The Athletic and noted how they’d written that teams were losing money every year. The reason behind his queasiness was his belief that it is a norm for racing teams to not be generating profits. “That’s nothing new s***,” he said. “I’ve never made any money racing.”

Dale Jr. has been at the helm of a racing team for about two decades now. First, it was Chance 2 Motorsports and then, JR Motorsports. In all his ventures, he admits, he has never seen green on the books. He continued, “I would love to know where somebody is racing a race car and making money. It ain’t happened in my life. And every Cup [Series] team I’ve ever known didn’t make money.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. empathizes with the demands of team owners despite non-belief in cause

The former Hendrick Motorsports icon’s words stem from his experience as a team owner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. It ought to be remembered that financial dynamics vary vastly between the Cup Series and the Xfinity Series. Noting the same himself, Dale Jr. continued to express that the teams could be profitable despite his belief that it was an unrealistic purpose to have in motorsports.

His words went, “I don’t know if it’s even realistic for the teams to think that they can get profitable but maybe they could.” He touched upon how JR Motorsports was breaking even in the second-tier to see the alternate view point. “We break even running in the Xfinity Series. So, I think breaking even and making money in the Cup Series is realistic,” he said.

NASCAR teams losing money to go racing? Nothing new in our book. pic.twitter.com/WtJDhkh7ij

— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) May 1, 2024

End of the day, revenue beating the expenses in NASCAR is a foreign concept for Dale Jr. His staunch belief is that racing, as an owner, is a difficult job from the financial sense of things. Though his views branch away from that of the current team owners in the Cup Series, he lends them enough of a hand to validate their demands from NASCAR.