Dale Jr. Download<\/a>. \u201cThe Daytona 500 is the most important race of the season, and I would say that it, for an open team or anybody that wants to enter the race, that probably is the best opportunity financially to do it and not lose money.<\/p>\n\u201cIt costs a significant amount of money to run any race, Talladega or whatever. If you wanna go run in the middle of the year or a couple races throughout the year, harder to make the financial work in them other events. This one, we\u2019re just presented with opportunity to go do it. We got some partners that wanna go help us fund it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Allgaier is confirmed for the return trip to Daytona but it is still to be decided if the Hendrick Motorsports supplied team that includes veteran crew chief Greg Ives will all come back with the 2024 Xfinity Series champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur shop gets excited about it. They feel like it\u2019s their effort,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cYou see Rodney Childers chiming in on social media and you see our employees get pumped about the idea because it\u2019s their car. It\u2019s our flagship. But I will say this, more than likely, I don\u2019t know for sure 100 percent, but if I had it my way, we would go with exactly the same components, people and personnel as we did last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cJustin\u2019s gonna drive the car. Last year, we had Greg Ives as the crew chief. We had [Barry] 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. That hopefully comes together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the top-10 with a capable crew and driver, Earnhardt is already nervous about even making the show since he doesn\u2019t have a charter that locks them into the race. It\u2019s the new Chevrolet Camaro body style that has him nervous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m nervous because we\u2019re going to have a new body,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cAnytime a manufacturer gets a new body, they don\u2019t go to Daytona and perform better. You\u2019re figuring out kind of what makes that body perform at a track like that. I don\u2019t know details, I just shoot it straight. Every time a manufacturer changes the body, they\u2019re trying their best in every way, when a new body is coming in, to make their cars more competitive at the tracks that we race the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re always trying to put a character line in there or fudge the quarter panel, or whatever the nose in such a way they\u2019re working with the teams to go, \u2018Hey man, this is what we need, this would make us better. Well, let\u2019s see if we can get it passed through. Will NASCAR accept it?\u2019 NASCAR will run it through some tests and aero and stuff like that to make sure it\u2019s not like this massive advantage comparable to the other manufacturers.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, with all of that in mind, Earnhardt is tempering expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got to rein all the expectations back in to man, we just got to get in the show. Let\u2019s get in the show. We\u2019re not locked in,\u201d Earnhardt said. \u201cNew body, don\u2019t know how the car will qualify. We thought we were gonna do alright last year and we didn\u2019t in qualifying. I\u2019ll be apprehensive about our opportunity in just pure speed on qualifying. We may have to go back and race our way in.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026 You just want to get there and roll the car out for Sunday morning and put it on the grid. That\u2019s a proud moment, pushing a car out on to the grid and standing there watching your driver. That\u2019s a proud moment. \u2026 Hopefully we can go back. It\u2019ll be hard to recreate the experience and the success we had last year. So, everybody will have to be realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
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