Scene Daily is reporting that Dale Earnhardt Jr. is considering moving his JR Motorsports program to Sprint Cup as soon as 2009.
Jr. quickly took Martin Truex Jr. off his potential short list of drivers:
Why would he want to come drive for me? He’s in good stuff now and he’s going to have great opportunities from other people. And I would never do that to him. For the first year coming out of the box, man we’ll struggle like hell. Come on, man. He’s going to have deals offered to him by these great companies around here and from DEI. I’ll be at the bottom of that list, right there with Haas [CNC Racing] and a couple of other people. I don’t know with Tony [Stewart] if he goes [to Haas CNC], he might be able to talk Martin into it. But I don’t know, man. I mean no way would I even do that to Martin, even if he wanted to.
If you remember last year it was briefly rumored that Jr. would take his team to Sprint Cup with Truex driving a second car for the team.
Despite what Jr. says, I think it could be a possibility that Truex is considered. The two are good friends and Truex has driven for Jr. before.
NASCAR is a sport of denials. Drivers, owners and sponsors frequently deny deals that are eventually announced. So, don’t be surprised if we see Truex in a JR Motorsports Cup entry.
May 17, 2008 at 5:41 am |
Very, very interesting. Personally, I think if this is a valid rumor, then Junior might want to consider slowing down for a moment and concentrating on getting a couple seasons under his belt over at HMS first. It just seems like he’s been taking an awful lot on lately.
http://www.doyounascar.com
May 17, 2008 at 6:27 am |
I think that, so long as the rumors continue and he continues to do things outside of driving a racecar, people will keep questioning his focus.
And, if he doesn’t win for a while, those questions will get louder and louder.
May 18, 2008 at 7:12 am |
[...] The Lead Lap wrote an interesting post today on JR Motorsports To Cup?Here’s a quick excerptThe two are good friends and Truex has driven for Jr. before. NASCAR is a sport of denials…. [...]
May 19, 2008 at 10:18 pm |
[...] the Lead Lap and Scene Daily are both reporting that Dale Earnhardt Jr. may have plans to bring JR Motorsports to [...]
March 19, 2009 at 3:10 pm |
[...] year, team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr created a minor media frenzy when he implied that JR Motorsports would move to Cup if the Nationwide Series moved to a car of [...]