Despite his premature retirement a few years ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t exactly retired from NASCAR. He is committed to running once a year in the Xfinity Series, which this year, will be two races. Along with that, now he also runs in the CARS Tour, which he also co-owns. And recently, Mike Davis, Junior’s friend and professional associate, used his example as a hiring pitch to the recent guest of the Dale Jr. Download podcast.
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That guest was Matt Kenseth, one of the biggest stars of NASCAR’s modern era.
Davis told Kenseth how despite Earnhardt Jr’s retirement, he still runs in yearly races, and to ensure he doesn’t rust his racing skills, he takes part in a few tests here and there. “That’s perfect schedule,” Davis told Kenseth.
However, the 2003 Cup champion explained his problem with running for races in the current environment.
Matt Kenseth on the “so backwards” aspect of the racing scene today
Kenseth described how 20 years ago, there were team owners who would invite drivers to come and drive their cars, which is completely different from how things are today. “Now it’s like, I had one guy that asked me to drive at Wilkesboro, ‘Yeah Dale Jr. told me that I should call you. You wanna drive my car at Wilkesboro?’ I was like, ‘Man, I would go out there and drive it for you.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, we need to get 20 grand,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not paying you $20,000 to go a racecar. You’re nuts,'” he revealed.
“I haven’t paid to drive a racecar since I always paid for it, me and Dad but as soon as somebody let me drive their cars, I’m like, ‘Man I don’t have to go to work and spend my money on tires and do all this, I’m doing this.’ So I’m like, I’m not doing this.”
The Hall of Famer opened up on how things have changed a lot as he used the example of Late Model teams who would offer 30% of the purse to a driver back in the day or drivers would even drive for free.
“But now it’s just, the whole thing has turned into a, ‘How much money would you pay me to come and drive your cars?’ Just so backwards. It’s drivers hiring owners instead of owners hiring drivers,” Kenseth added, to which Davis once again made his pitch.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. offered Kenseth a ride in the CARS Tour
After Kenseth explained how different things are today in the racing scene than what they were before, Mike Davis pointed his attention to the situation that “may not be that.” “This is exactly what you need,” Davis said, “a no-commitment, just race for fun, do it with your friend.”
This led to Dale Earnhardt Jr. offering his pal a ride.
“I’ll get you to race, drive a good car. I’ll tell you this, the car doesn’t win when I drive it but every time Josh Berry drives it, it wins. It’s a good car,” he told Kenseth. In fact, Junior even revealed that he spoke to Kenseth in Darlington about the prospect of running in the CARS Tour, asking him to “show up once,” which could soon be a possibility, as Kenseth’s reaction suggested. “That’d be fun,” he said.
So perhaps, Matt Kenseth could actually be running in Earnhardt’s CARS Tour pretty soon.
