{"id":221364,"date":"2025-10-18T04:08:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T04:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221364\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T04:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T04:08:07","slug":"dale-earnhardt-jr-warns-jgr-star-not-to-get-in-way-of-his-nascar-title-motorsport-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/221364\/","title":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. warns JGR star not to get in way of his NASCAR title – Motorsport – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has never been shy about protecting the integrity of NASCAR<\/a>‘s playoff battles, and this week, he sent a clear message to Joe Gibbs Racing’s Aric Almirola to not mess with the Xfinity Series title fight.<\/a><\/p>\n

On the latest episode of The Dale Jr. Download<\/a>, the NASCAR Hall of Famer voiced concern over JGR’s decision to field Almirola, a non-playoff driver, in its No. 19 Toyota during the final races of the Xfinity Series playoffs. The move intended to boost the team’s pursuit of the owners’ championship, left Earnhardt questioning how it might affect the racing drivers for the title<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I love Aric,” Earnhardt said on his podcast. “I’d like to think we\u2019re friends, and I’m happy for him to go through this process and make these memories with his kids. Those are great things. But now he\u2019s going to run Martinsville and Phoenix.”<\/p>\n

“They’re going for that owner’s points championship in the 19 car, and I worry how that will mingle with the drivers\u2019 championship, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Almirola displaced Justin Bonsignore. Earnhardt clarified that while he respects JGR\u2019s goals, there\u2019s a fine line between chasing hardware and interfering with history.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully, Aric can do what he needs to do to give them the best shot to win the owner\u2019s championship,” Earnhardt said. “I want that for him. He’s free to race hard, but I just hope that he doesn’t affect the drivers\u2019 championship in some negative way. That would be tough.”<\/p>\n

As the playoffs head toward the Championship 4 finale at Phoenix Raceway on November 2, Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports organization features Connor Zilisch and Justin Allgaier as the top two drivers in points farthest from elimination worries.<\/p>\n

“I’m hoping to have a couple guys in the four at Phoenix,” he said, candidly. “And I hope he doesn\u2019t mess that up for me. He can race hard for the owner\u2019s championship, but there’s a driver’s championship totally unrelated to him.”<\/p>\n

“He doesn’t need to give anything up. Just don\u2019t run into our car. Don’t make a mistake. Don’t get loose underneath somebody and take our guys up the track, cut a tire, or whatever.”<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

Despite his warning, Earnhardt emphasized that his comments weren’t meant as an attack. “He’s not that kind of racer,” he said. “He’s very smart. I could race Aric side by side and not worry about him ever making a mistake. I’m just expressing my inner thoughts here. Not being insulting, just transparent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr. has never been shy about protecting the integrity of NASCAR‘s playoff battles, and this week,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[21261,49,48,14056,12101,2332,634,103103,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-221364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-aric-almirola","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","12":"tag-joe-gibbs-racing","13":"tag-motorsport-section","14":"tag-nascar","15":"tag-nascar-championship","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}