It is fascinating how well Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister Kelley work together in running their Xfinity Series team, JR Motorsports. Although the team started competing in the year 2005, Jr. and Kelley were already working together as professionals. It’s fair to say that Kelley is the brains behind the operations at JRM, with Dale focused more on the racing side of things. But that dynamic has changed in the past few years.

2017 was the last time Dale Jr. raced full-time in the Cup Series. Since then, he’s limited his racing to part-time features at the Xfinity level and in late-model racing. This has now allowed him to focus his attention on the business side of things at JRM. However, his curiosity and willingness to add more value to the team have led to conflicts of ideas and opinions. And even his sister Kelley Earnhardt is having a hard time dealing with his younger brother.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is fully invested in his role at JR Motorsports

Now, to better understand this change, let us go back in time a bit. Before Jr. started racing, he was working for his sister Kelley on her race car. She was a talented race car driver, but she quit her racing after graduating and started working full-time at Actions Performance. During that period, she also managed Rusty Wallace’s account, gaining valuable insight into the business aspects of NASCAR.

However, after Dale Sr.’s death, both Jr. and Kelley joined forces again and embarked on a new journey as team owners. This was a time when Dale Jr. was still racing full-time at Hendrick Motorsports and Kelley was the one who looked after the day-to-day operations at JRM. Now that Jr. has retired and has settled down with his family, he’s become more involved and invested in his ownership role.

For the most part, the JRM worked as a well-oiled unit and remains to do so. But the family dynamics have certainly changed, as explained by Kelley while speaking on Skinner Round-Up. “It’s actually harder now to balance family dynamics because now Dale’s married. He has kids, I’m married; I have kids. We have different lives… And so it’s more conversations that we have to have, which can lead to more things we disagree on, and all of that kind of stuff, you know. It’s not bad at all.”

Earlier this year, when Kelley spoke to Kenny Wallace, she explained why the problems between the siblings emerged. Dale Jr. remained focused on the motorsports side of things earlier while she managed the business. When he entered the business side of things, Kelley made it clear that she ran a tight ship. It eventually created a small rift between the two, one that healed quickly after the siblings had a simple conversation.

She added that his involvement had certainly changed the way they first started working. “Now he wants to know more of the underneath, and it’s great. I want him to know more, but sometimes he’ll have opinions on it, and I’m like, That’s what we’ve been doing, and he’s like, I don’t care if that’s what we’ve been doing. I’m like, well this has worked this way for 25 years; don’t screw us up now,” she added.

Whatever it is the two are doing at JRM has certainly worked out well for them. In 2024, they bagged their fourth Xfinity Series title while they are still exploring opportunities to enter the Cup Series as their long-term project.

Dale Jr. has his eyes set on the Cup Series ownership

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It’s no secret the idea of taking JRM to the NASCAR Cup Series tempts that Dale Jr. However, the current charter system dispute, financial instability, and uncertain future of the team owners have put his dream project on hold. With a family legacy and the flag bearer of the Earnhardt name, his team has received offers to join the big leagues. But none of them made sense to the ownership group at JRM.

“We’re always like open to hearing what somebody things about a partnership with us would look like. But none of them to this point have been, that’s it, that’s the perfect match,” Jr. said during his podcast show. However, if there’s a right offer in terms of partnership, he certainly would give it a shot. Although jokingly, Jr. did pitch this idea to Mario Andretti, who is an American motorsports icon keeping his options open to enter NASCAR.

“If ya’ll wanted to change courses, maybe the Earnhardt’s and the Andretti’s could team up, and we can go buy a couple of NASCAR charters.” Interestingly, ever since Jr. made this pitch, things have certainly shaped up for them to embark on this journey. The Andretti family wasn’t able to have direct access to the ownership of the F1 team as Cadillac and GM have emerged as the new leaders.

On the other hand, NASCAR has stated that they are not going to agree to the sale of two SHR charters to 23XI Racing and FRM. Both the teams have filed a lawsuit against NASCAR after not signing the new charter deal. Now it is indeed a long shot to see Dale Earnhardt Jr. making the most of two teams’ misery, but NASCAR is a sport full of surprises, so you never know.