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.
Ideally it should have 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 scenes during the competition meeting at JRM but Caruth has now spoken up about the tense situation.
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"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.
JR Motorsports has all four drivers locked into the Chase, and the team dynamics are about to get interesting. Subscribe for more interesting stories.
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 picked up 23 points, which ended up being enough for Caruth to seal the 12th and final Chase position.
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The race in Daytona seems to have become a major turning point for Dale Jr and JR Motorsports. He said on his Dale Jr Download podcast
that he had allowed his drivers the freedom and had never had a meeting in which he dictated how they should drive during closing stages of races.
Dale Jr.'s logic was that he remembers how selfish he was as a driver and how he used to be the one who wanted to make the late moves, but at a team like Hendrick Motorsports, where his teammates were Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson, making those moves meant that he could ruin the races for HMS as well as create a negative image of himself within the team.
The JRM cited examples of Joe Gibbs Racing, Team Penske, Kaulig, and a few others where there is an understanding of how to bring all cars to the end of the race while fighting for the win.
"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."
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As Caruth said, the talks of team rules for speedways have been shelved with Talladega race coming up in the Chase. But the JRM drivers may come to loggerheads even sooner. All four JRM drivers are qualified for the Chase.
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.
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