It’s been more than a year since Dale Earnhardt Jr. last strapped into an Xfinity car, his most recent start coming at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 20, 2024. Just before that race, on his podcast, he had admitted that it might have been his final run in the series.
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Junior seemed convinced that the chapter had closed, though he planned to keep wheeling his Late Model “for a little while.” He also confirmed he had no intentions of returning to the Xfinity grid in 2025, though he left the door cracked open for 2026.
“I’d be foolish to rule it out,” he said, knowing the urge to race never truly fades. Back in September 2025, he even mapped out a few tracks that could lure him back. He dismissed North Wilkesboro’s new pavement for now but hinted he might revisit it when the asphalt’s a little worn out, perhaps when he’s 55 or 58, and jump back in just for the thrill of it.
Outside of that, Bristol remains high on his list. And if NASCAR ever takes the show to Nashville, he admitted he’d likely give that one a hard look, too. Junior even toyed with the idea of running a Truck Series race, though he couldn’t decide which track would suit the occasion. Martinsville, he confessed, still tempts him as an Xfinity stop, despite its challenges.
Now 51, Junior once told Jeff Gluck that he’d probably hang up his helmet for good between 50 and 55. But when Gluck asked again this year, if he sees a hard endpoint for his Late Model or Xfinity appearances, or if he’ll keep digging into his 60s, Earnhardt was candid: “I don’t know the answer to that. I’m definitely going to run next year, and it’s really a year-to-year kind of thing.”
He compared it to a decision he once made about his helicopter, a chopper he bought from Tony Stewart. Junior narrated that he had had that helicopter for a couple of years. “It was great,” he recalled. But then, one day, he just woke up and went, ‘I don’t want to get in a helicopter anymore,’ and he sold it.
He suspects racing will end the same way. “One day I’ll just wake up and go, ‘You know what? I think that was it. I think that was the last one.’ I really feel it’ll be that way. It’s been like a faucet I’ve been slowly turning off as I went and ran those Xfinity Series races once a year, and now the Late Model races. I’m just kind of slowly turning that faucet off until I feel like I’m ready to shut it off entirely.”
12 Questions with @DaleJr just dropped: https://t.co/x3b6mBWEHx
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) October 22, 2025
This season, while Junior stayed away from Xfinity competition, he kept his hands dirty with four Late Model starts, finishing 21st at Cordele Motor Speedway, 10th at Anderson, 18th at Florence, and 12th at Tri-County. For a man who’s learned to turn down the faucet gradually, the racer in him clearly hasn’t run dry just yet.
