Dale Earnhardt Jr could just have ended it right there when Justin Allgaier claimed that epic top-10 finish in the 2025 Daytona 500. But he is not wired like that.

The 51-year-old legend of the sport, who co-owns Xfinity Series team JR Motorsports with sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller, will be back in Florida early next year to do it all again. And now he has explained just why.

Dale Jr spoke in depth about the iconic test of motorsports endurance in his latest Dale Jr Download podcast, and explained why he and Kelley feel the need to take on the Cup Series challenge once more, again with Allgaier in the No. 40 car.

Unsurprisingly finances play a big part here, with the dollars available limiting the risk for JR.

Dale Jr said: “Well, Kelly will tell you that we race. So we get a chance to race, we race. We just want to race. The Daytona 500 is the most important race of the season.

Dollars and Daytona - a match made in heaven

“And I would say that for any open team, or anybody that wants to enter the race, that probably is the best opportunity to do it financially and not lose money.

“It costs a significant amount of money to run any race -Talladega or whatever. If you want to go run in the middle of the year, run a couple of races throughout the year, it’s harder to make the financial money work in them other races.

“This one we’re just presented with opportunity to go do it. We have some partners that want to go help us fund it. It doesn’t touch this (Xfinity resources).”

Dale Jr added that while the money side stacks up, the sheer joy and pride his team will take in their Daytona bid, will make it all worthwhile.

“Our shop gets excited about it. They feel like it’s their effort, right? You see Rodney Childers chiming in on social media and you see just, you know, how our employees get pumped about the idea. Because it’s their car. It’s a big deal, it’s the Daytona 500.”

Getting the band back together

Earnhardt Jr says the 2025 Daytona experience was such fun for all concerned, he’d love to bring exactly the same group back together for 2026.

“If I had my way, we would go with exactly the same components and people and personnel as we did last year. I know Justin’s going to drive the car. We had Greg Ives as a crew chief. We had B Hoover come out of retirement - my old car chief guy.

“I would have everything as it was. That was a great fun group of people. They all wanted to be there, they all cared about it. So that hopefully comes together.”

Dale Jr is under no illusion that things will be easy this time after last year’s epic top-10, admitting: “You’ve gotta rein all the expectations back to to ‘man we just gotta get in the show, let’s get in the show’.”