Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports won’t have Cup team in 2011, still seeks full-time Nationwide Series driver
Tony Eury Jr. (left) and Tony Eury Sr. (right) watch practice with young driver Steve Arpin, who is a candidate for JR Motorsports' No. 88 car next year.
// LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
CHARLOTTE – JR Motorsports is still evaluating drivers for its No. 88 car, and young drivers Steve Arpin, Coleman Pressley and Josh Wise are still in the mix for a full-time ride in 2011.
What JRM is not considering is a move to the Sprint Cup Series.
“No Cup plans,” team co-owner Kelley Earnhardt said on Wednesday. “No Kasey Kahne. No Mark Martin. Nothing for JR Motorsports. At this point, we would need to get started on that, and it’s definitely not in our future for 2011.”
Instead, Earnhardt and her brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr., need to find sponsorship and drivers for their Nationwide Series cars for next year. She knows Danica Patrick will drive in 13 races in a GoDaddy.com-sponsored car and that Grand Touring Vodka will sponsor 15 races with a driver to be determined.
But that doesn’t even fill one full season for an organization that plans to have two Nationwide cars again next year.
This year, those two cars have had 13 drivers, and Aric Almirola will become the 14th when he drives the No. 88 car next week at O’Reilly Raceway Park.
“I’d like to find somebody like Aric that has been to the tracks,” Kelley Earnhardt said about her future driver. “He gets there and it’s not brand new. He’s driven the cars and knows what the feel is.”
But that likely won’t be Almirola. JRM competition director Tony Eury Sr. said he doesn’t expect Almirola to be available next season.
“I think somebody is going to grab him up,” Eury Sr. said. “There will be Cup teams looking for drivers, and I think Aric will be one that gets picked up.”
Kelly Bires, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Patrick, Jamie McMurray, Elliott Sadler, Greg Sacks, Scott Wimmer, Ron Fellows, Landon Cassill and J.R. Fitzpatrick have all driven for the organization this year.
Eury Sr. said that Arpin, Wise and Pressley are all being considered for full-time rides next year. Wise will drive the No. 7 this weekend at Gateway International Raceway and Arpin will drive the No. 88.
Arpin has five starts for JRM and has been in accidents in three of them. His best finish was 10th at Daytona.
Wise, who was a Michael Waltrip Racing development driver, has two starts for JR Motorsports, finishing 16th at Nashville and 15th at Kentucky.
Pressley had two starts with finishes of 12th and 18th.
“We see Josh as a guy that runs up front, he keeps his car clean [and] if you give him a good car, there’s a chance to win the race there,” said Eury Sr., who also is the crew chief for the No. 88 car. “If not, the car comes home in one piece and he gets you the best finish he can.
“Arpin is the harder charger guy of the two. He doesn’t have the experience Josh has. That will come. It just takes those dirt racers a little while when they come to the asphalt deal. We see a lot in both of them. We’ve looked at those two and looked at Coleman Pressley. I think it’s down to those three. We’ll get a few more races under our belts here and then we’ll make a decision on what we’re going to do [for 2011].”
Kelley Earnhardt said the organization needs to know a little more about NASCAR’s plans to change the Nationwide Series rules to help promote younger drivers. She needs to know, she said, if there will be limits on Cup drivers and what programs are in place to help young drivers so the team can convince a sponsor to support an up-and-coming driver.
“It would be nice to know specifically what we’re working with and what we can sell and do,” Kelley Earnhardt said. “In the environment that we’re in from the economic standpoint, it takes a personality to sell a sponsor.
“Performance and being up front and somebody they can market and somebody the consumer is going to recognize and want to be a part of whatever they’re doing is so important.”
Sponsors are hesitant to go with a young driver, she said.
“I don’t think teams will be able to just take a kid right off the street and sell him on sponsorship at this level,” Earnhardt said. “You can’t sell $6-7 million on Brad Coleman and these guys. They’ve got talent, no doubt about it, but until they can get on the race track and get some dollars behind them, it just all works in a big circle.”
