NASCAR: Dale Earnhardt Jr. may get a winning send-off after all

By Asher Fair | Jan 29, 2018

FORT WORTH, TX - APRIL 10: Dale Earnhardt, Jr., driver of the #88 Goody's Chevrolet, looks on from the grid during qualifying for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Duck Commander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on April 10, 2015 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Sarah Glenn/Getty Images for Texas Motor Speedway) /

While he is now retired from full-time racing in the NASCAR Cup Series, Dale Earnhardt Jr. may get a winning send-off after all.

While 15-time Most Popular Driver Award winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. is now officially from retired from his role as a full-time driver of the #88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series, he recently announced that he is not done racing in NASCAR just yet.

Earnhardt Jr., 43, is set to race in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this upcoming season in at least one race, with that one confirmed race thus far being the fall race at Richmond Raceway.

In that race, Earnhardt Jr. is set to drive for JR Motorsports, which is the team he co-owns in the series along with his sister Kelley Earnhardt Miller and Rick Hendrick. He would drive for this team in any other Xfinity Series races in the 2018 season as well if he ended up driving in more than just the Richmond race.

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After announcing last April that he would retire from his role as a full-time Cup Series driver following the conclusion of the 2017 season, Earnhardt Jr. had 28 more attempts to try to win a race in his final full-time Cup Series season.

Unfortunately, he was unable to do so despite having what looked like a car capable of winning at several tracks, particularly at the restrictor plate tracks of Talladega and Daytona. He ended up retiring with his most recent win in the series coming way back at the end of the 2015 season at Phoenix.

But now, he may get a winning send-off after all. Health risks have certainly been a concern for Earnhardt Jr., so before the 2018 season, him racing in the Xfinity Series was certainly a question mark.

However, while it is still a question mark as far as future seasons go, now we know he is set to get at least one chance to race in the series this year, and that chance is set to come at Richmond Raceway, which is a track at which he has had great success over the course of his NASCAR career.

In his Cup Series career, Earnhardt Jr. won 26 races. Of those 26 wins, three came at Richmond in 36 races at the track. In his Xfinity Series career, Earnhardt Jr. has won 24 races. Of those 24 wins, four have come at Richmond in just seven races at the track.

Could Earnhardt Jr. actually get a winning send-off after all before officially retiring from NASCAR racing? If he were to win at Richmond, would he proceed to announce that he is officially done racing in NASCAR after that?

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Will Dale Earnhardt Jr. win any races in the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series season? Could he potentially return for a few more races in future seasons as well in an attempt to do so? As of now, we won’t know until Friday, September 21st, which is when the Richmond fall race is set to take place.

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