“I’m just gonna see how badly I’m going to miss it,” Dale Earnhardt Jr stated about his 2025 racing schedule (or lack thereof) ahead of this year’s Cheddar’s 300, breaking collective hearts. The JR Motorsports team owner, who’s enjoyed one-off races in the Xfinity Series since 2015—as part of a deal he was required to fulfill—decided to sit next year out and even proudly proclaimed how that’s the way “I like it”. But for veterans of the sport, such as Martin Truex Jr—who’s also on his way out next year—it will be a memorable miss.

In case you didn’t know, Dale Jr’s JRM has had a partnership with team sponsors Unilever and Hellmann’s which required him to compete in at least one race per season. But with the sponsor waiving off the requirement come 2025, Junior will have the freedom to take a year off, which is exactly what he’ll do. “I don’t have a requirement to run next year. And I will miss it terribly, and regret I didn’t race and probably in 2026, find me somewhere where I can compete in the Xfinity Series again. But right now, I don’t have any plans,” Earnhardt Jr explained.

However, as reactions started pouring in from the community, Truex Jr’s emotional appeal stood out as a reminder of the pair’s friendship, dating back to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver’s early days in NASCAR. In fact, when the then Furniture Row Racing driver picked up his first and only Cup Series championship in 2017, Dale Jr (with his wife, Amy) was among the few contenders who went to the podium in person to congratulate him. Keep in mind, Junior himself has never won the Cup Series championship, which made the act even more selfless.

For the unversed: Dale Jr and Truex Jr drummed up a friendship in the early 2000s. During a tire test in Richmond, then Dale Earnhardt Inc. engineer Richie Gilmore had informed Earnhardt Jr about making young Martin run a couple of races for The Intimidator’s team. To this, Junior had suggested that the future JGR driver try running with his car. While that didn’t come to fruition due to inclement weather, a chance encounter in the garage area later, led to some long conversations and an even longer friendship.

So naturally, after the #19 driver announced his retirement two days before the Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway this year, his longtime friend couldn’t help but reminisce their camaraderie. Talking on the Dale Jr Download podcast earlier in June, the veteran had revealed, “When we were going to run him full-time [at DEI], and he’s going to have to move here, he moved into my house, and lived just down the hallway from me, in the upstairs modular home that I had.”

However, as Truex Jr started making money from his budding racing career with the team, he decided to move out and rent a property—also owned by his then team owner’s son. “We spent a ton of time, a ton of time drinking in the basement, going to bars in the middle of the week, hanging out on the back porches, running around on the farm being idiots. You know, we just had a lot of fun. We went on a trip, guys’ trip, somewhere tropical. We were on the beach, hanging out, and rented this house. He had started talking to Sherry Pollex. So when we got home from that trip, he moved out. They ended up getting a place, or he went into her house, or I’m not sure what happened, but he left the compound. He’s been on his own ever since,” the JRM team owner further revealed.

So how could the man, whose racing career was helped so much by Junior, not lament at this temporary absence? In a press conference ahead of the 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race, the JGR veteran shared his side of the friendship, “I learned a lot of the ropes of how things go from him. Just tag along, learned a lot of things that he got to do, and got to experience a lot of things that I would never have at that point in my career. A lot of fun, a lot of memories together. We got to go to Victory Lane together which was really cool.”

He also added the one request he had for Jr: “I told him[Dale], ‘Can you just do one more year in the Xfinity Series so that we can race together one last time?’ Definitely a ton of good memories and an amazing start to my career because of him.”

The possibility of Martin Truex Jr. and Dale Jr. sharing a stage once again in the Xfinity Series is not beyond the realm of possibility. After an impressive seventh-place result at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 20, the JR Motorsports team owner remained coy about his future and refused to rule out the possibility of making an appearance in 2025. When asked about his participation on the short track next year, he went on to say “I just might”, leaving fans excited about the prospect of seeing the veteran in action once again.

As things stand, there are plenty of uncertainties surrounding JR Motorsports that Dale Jr. needs to take into account. The team is going through a transition phase, with Connor Zilisch joining as a full-time driver next season and Carson Kvapil rumored to be moving from Late Model to the Xfinity Series. Meanwhile, both Sam Mayer and Brandon Jones who are in the team’s existing lineup, are expected to leave. This means that the 49-year-old needs to prioritize what’s best for his team before committing to Martin Truex Jr.

Truex Jr. calm ahead of crucial race at Bristol

For now, Martin Truex Jr. will be fully focused on getting a good result at Bristol Motor Speedway, in what is the final Round of 16 playoff race. The veteran is looking to end his season on a high, despite securing poor results in the opening two postseason races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen International. He is currently 14 points outside the cutline, which means a top-five result may be necessary for him to keep his title hopes alive going into Kansas.

Speaking in the pre-race press conference, the veteran driver said, “Yeah, I mean it’s our last shot, right? So yeah, I don’t know. I wouldn’t say nervous, just you kind of just want to get it going. You know, the next 24 hours, there’s going to be a lot to talk about, a lot to think about. A lot of guesswork about how do we approach the race. So yeah, we’ll see. But I wouldn’t say it’s nervous. I mean, I’ve been doing this long enough that I just look forward to the opportunity.”

Martin Truex Jr. hasn’t been in the best form of late, with his 20th place finish at ‘The Glen’ being his best result since an eighth-place result at Pocono Raceway. The 44-year-old hasn’t secured a single win this year either, making it to the postseason on points alongside teammate Ty Gibbs. This season will be his only chance of winning another Cup Series championship, but results will need to drastically change if has any hopes of going all the way to Championship 4 and lifting the title at Phoenix Raceway.