NNS: Earnhardt-Miller says JR Motorsports has been “Labor of Love” to become champions

For most eyes focused on JR Motorsports, the road to a championship with Chase Elliott began 12 months ago, when JRM was able to sign NAPA Auto Parts to a deal to sponsor Elliott.

“This year having NAPA on board, really 12 months ago not really having anything together for Chase or this team, it’s kind of surreal to be here and be champions with an 18-year-old driver and a sponsor that has been in Dale and I’s court before in our past,” Kelley Earnhardt-Miller expressed. “It’s very exciting.”

However, the road truly began back in 2006 when Dale Earnhardt Jr. started the team, with his sister Kelley as the General Manager. Since then, as Earnhardt-Miller says, it’s been “a labor of love” getting to where they are today.

“It’s very satisfying to have been a part of JR Motorsports for all these years and to have came up through the three stocks and late models and pro Cup Series and anything else we’ve ever done,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “We bought our first car and raced it out of the shop in my backyard, and our first race was here at Homestead at the end of the year.  I think it was ’05 maybe, ’06, several years ago.  But we were just trying to go racing, just be in the series, and we had a great partner with Navy to get started.  We went through a lot of growing pains, won some races, worked with a lot of great people, and, you know, this championship just really has me reflecting back on all that and all the people that have come through that shop and the people that we have now, the relationships that we’ve built, partners we’ve had.  It’s just been a — it’s only been ten years, it seems like it’s been 100.  It’s been a wonderful, wonderful trip.”

The journey began back in 2005 when the Earnhardts got into discussions with the NAVY and the NAVY told them that if JRM was ready to move up to Nationwide from the Pro Cup Series where they had been running, that the NAVY would have their back. The deal got formed, with JRM buying a car from Dale Earnhardt Incorporated that Paul Menard had ran earlier that year.

“We brought it here with Mark McFarland as the driver and Wes Ward was the crew chief,” Earnhardt recalled. “We had a used pit box that me and Wes barely fit on together.  We just wanted to race.  We didn’t have — at the time, and I knew it, we didn’t have the resources to compete with the guys up front, but we were just trying to get out there and be a part of it, and we just wanted to compete.”

That first race saw their rookie driver finish 20th, but more importantly, it kicked things into motion. Mark Martin got the team their first win in 2008 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, with Brad Keselowski taking the team to a third place finish in points in 2009. The success has simply continued to build to equal 21 wins as an organization with Elliott  winning the championship this year with Regan Smith finishing second to him.

“I can’t take a lot of credit for how well we’ve done since,” Earnhardt said. “I know we’ve got a lot of people that have come into our company and influenced that.  Kelley has steered the ship, and people like Greg Ives and the Eurys and all these people that have been through the company have helped us climb another rung on the ladder one year at a time to where we are.”

The company has seen drivers move on to do bigger things, with Keselowski winning a Sprint Cup Series Championship in 2012 for Team Penske. They have also started a lot of young drivers in their cars through the years, to give them their chance to drive.

Driver development is something that has been known with Earnhardt, dating back to when he co-owned Chance 2 Motorsports with his step-mother Teresa Earnhardt. They gave Martin Truex Jr. a chance and he won a pair of championships, before moving up to Sprint Cup. With JR Motorsports, driver development continues not only with Elliott, but with their late model program.

JR Motorsports runs late models weekly with young drivers Josh Berry and William Bryon behind the wheel; the pair had success this year, finishing one-two in points.

“I think that I enjoy racing the late models because it’s a little bit easier at that level to give some guys opportunities to race,” Earnhardt commented. “You’re only talking about hundreds of dollars to go down to Hickory and run on the weekend, and to race in the Nationwide Series, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a guy to race.  It’s a bigger hill to climb.  And also there’s a grass-roots feeling about it and feeling like you’re still connected to where you started.  It gives me a real good sense of pride.

“I go to those — I went to Hickory and watched Josh run a 100 lapper a couple weeks ago.  I hadn’t seen him race in a long time, and I hadn’t been to a late model show in a long time, and that was just a bonus thing just being there and watching that race and I wanted to be out there so bad.  I’m trying to figure out how I can sneak out there and run a couple without anybody knowing.”

Earnhardt added that they have started Berry in some Nationwide Series races, but haven’t been able to do more as it’s a challenge to find the sponsorship to support a young, inexperienced driver. The key right now, for Berry, is to be patient for the opportunity, as hard as that may be. Earnhardt feels that it’s hard to find the support for the drivers because there’s “more talent out there than we’ve race cars”.

“You’re seeing so much talent in the K&N Series and in the Truck Series, and even in the Nationwide Series, that there’s just so many guys out there that I think have real good speed and just need the right breaks with the right people and right equipment,” he commented. “There’s only so many races and so many partners and so many race teams, but that’s a good problem to have when you’ve got more drivers than you’ve got cars.”

Seeing the young drivers succeed, though, is what makes it worth while for JR Motorsports to continue to do what they’re doing.

“It’s a labor of love, and we don’t do it because we’re padding our pockets, but we do do it because we give opportunities to people like Chase Elliott and Josh Berry and Regan Smith and Aric Almirola and Brad Keselowski and the crew chiefs that have come through,” Earnhardt-Miller expressed. “That’s the vision Dale had when he started JR Motorsports, and we’re continuing to keep that up, whether it’s crew members or drivers, and that’s really the passion that we have for us and our employees.  When I think about how hard it is, I think about the 120 people that we feed and all of their families, and they have the same passion that we do for the sport, and that’s why they do it, and I think that’s what keeps us going.”