Dale Earnhardt Jr. was not happy with the way things ended for JR Motorsports in the final regular-season race in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Daytona last weekend. JRM drivers were running 1-2-3, and yet none of them won, courtesy of Rajah Caruth spinning out with three laps to go.
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Ideally it should’ve been a win in the bag for JRM, but the crash cost them big time, forcing intervention from team owner, Dale Jr. Now it’s hard to know what went behind the scene during the competition meeting at JRM, but Caruth has now spoken up about the tense situation.
“Yeah…the goal from, like a company is, one of us to win in that situation,” said Caruth, “It was pretty much there on the platter. Bummer it didn’t work out. Bummer that I was the one that got spun out and crashed too, but I think part of it’s the nature of Speedway racing, but there’s shared responsibility in how the end of that race went, not just for me but my other teammates as well. But yeah, We talked through it and kind of shelving it for now, because we only have one more Speedway this year.”
Caruth was running second with Justin Allgaier running in third and Carson Kvapil leading the pack. Caruth slowed down to build momentum in order to make the pass on Kvapil, but the leader backed off as well. Just then Justin Allgaier gave Caruth a push, and the 88 Chevrolet went spinning into the outside wall, bringing out a caution.
With the Winn-Dixie 250 forced into overtime, Kvapil couldn’t hold on to the lead as Ryan Sieg took the white flag and the win. Kvapil finished third, Allgaier 6th, and Rajah Caruth finished 32nd. But he managed to score 23 points, which was enough to secure his spot in the Chase.
While, Caruth missed out on his first O’Reilly Series win, JRM lost an opportunity to win at Daytona. Dale Jr, shared opened up about the situation on his podcast on how he feels his drivers should race at superspeedways.
“I always expect our drivers to try to take care of each other, to try to help each other, to try to work together,” said Dale Jr on his podcast. “But I’ve never told them or wanted to say to them, ‘Man, you know what, ten to go and you’re in second, you’re not allowed to pass your teammates. You’re not allowed to try to create runs on your teammates.’ I’ve never said that to them. And it might be time to clamp down and actually have a little bit of a better understanding of an individual’s responsibility.”
The ideal scenario for the team would be to achieve something Hendrick Motorsports did in 2024. At Martinsville, William Byron led the unprecedented 1-2-3 finish at the paperclip during the 40th year anniversary of the organization. And this result stood firm despite the overtime finish.
Now it would be quite a sight to see JRM cars finish 1-2-3 at Talladega, which is included in the Chase. With all four JRM cars qualified for the Chase, they are expected to run together at the high banks of Dega.
Carson Kvapil trails his number one seeded teammate Justin Allgaier by 25 points after the reset. Sammy Smith in the 8 JRM Chevrolet enters as the 8th-seeded driver, and Rajah Caruth enters as the 12th seed, still searching for his first Auto Parts victory, having come close with a second-place finish in Iowa earlier this year.