Kevin Harvick: NASCAR needs Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Cup Series

This past week at Daytona was a landmark moment for both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and JR Motorsports as the team fielded a Cup Series car for the first time.

JRM teamed up with Chris Stapleton‘s Traveller Whiskey, and had reigning Xfinity Series champion Justin Allgaier pilot the No. 40 Chevrolet. Earnhardt and the folks at JRM came away satisfied with their performance as Allgaier kept her clean and finished ninth in the Great American Race.

Earnhardt, NASCAR‘s Most Popular Driver from 2003-17, brought something new to the sport it hasn’t had in a long time, Kevin Harvick said on his “Happy Hour” podcast. Harvick, who called the race on FOX, wants to see JRM take the next step and compete full-time in Cup.

Kevin Harvick explains why JRM belongs in Cup Series

“I want to see JR Motorsports in the Cup Series. I think it’s good for our sport,” Harvick said. “Seeing Dale Jr. and I know Dale pretty well — and seeing his enthusiasm showing up in the garage, walking with that car everywhere — he holds an immense amount of pride for stuff like that and the history and heritage of knowing that it was the first time for his team. I mean, he’s a very sentimental, emotional person that wanted to take all that in. Kudos to him for doing that because sometimes, I’m not the best at doing stuff like that and he was there from the time the garage opened till that car was loaded into the trailer.

“Wound up with a ninth-place finish. Souvenir trailer is gonna go back empty, they sold out everything. But I truly believe that JR Motorsports and Dale Jr. need to be on the racetrack on Sundays, and I hope that gives them enough enthusiasm and excitement to hopefully put something together. I think if he’s there on Sunday, it adds another layer to the Cup Series that we haven’t had in a long time. There’s a lot of owners out there that are liked, but there’s not an owner out there like Dale Jr. He would bring a different type of ownership to the racetrack nobody else can bring.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. addresses future of JRM, potential of running another NASCAR Cup race this season

As things stand, JRM doesn’t have any plans to run another Cup race this season. Running the Daytona 500 required a lot, Earnhardt saying on the “Dale Jr. Download” they had to cut some corners to get themselves ready to compete. Essentially, it boils down to sponsorships and money. Earnhardt has previously noted he would love to field a full-time Cup team, but he can’t make the complete financial investment to make that happen.

He’ll need partners, like Traveller Whiskey was this past weekend for JRM.

“The other side of it is otherwise I don’t know that we’re going to run another race this year,” Earnhardt said. “There’d have to be another partner, sponsor, to walk in the door and say, ‘Hey, we saw what you did, we want to be on your car for another race. Y’all want to run another race? We’ve got this much money, and we’d invest it in this event and we’d like to run in this market. Can we do it?’ That’s a long conversation.

“So, no plans to go run another race.”

On3’s Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this article.