Since being formed in 2002 by Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR Xfinity Series team JR Motorsports has fielded numerous high-profile drivers, including Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott, Mark Martin and Danica Patrick, among others.
In 2025, en route to the team’s 100th Xfinity Series win, they have fielded an extremely strong lineup including the currently injured Connor Zilisch, Justin Allgaier, Kyle Larson, Shane van Gisbergen, Ross Chastain, and Daniel Suarez. However, it seems another Cup Series legend could yet join the ranks at JRM.
In a recent episode of the ‘Dale Jr. Download‘, whilst discussing NASCAR’s potential rule change to allow Cup drivers to compete in more Xfinity/Craftsman Truck Series races each season, as per Sports Business Journal, Earnhardt revealed that two-time Cup champion Kyle Busch has reached out on numerous occasions about stepping behind the wheel of a JRM car.
“He texts me from time to time, he’s like, ‘Man, if you’ve got an open Xfinity race I’d love to run it,'” Earnhardt said.
Busch, the 2009 Xfinity Series champion and current driver of the No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet in the Cup, has not raced in NASCAR’s second series since the 2024 season, when he came home sixth at Charlotte for RCR in his sole appearance that year.
With 102 wins in 367 Xfinity races, Busch, 40, is the winningest series driver of all time, with a huge lead over Martin in second with 49 wins. In fact, Brad Keselowski is the closest currently active driver to him in the leaderboard with 39 victories.
Whether or not Earnhardt would ever consider giving Busch a drive in the Xfinity Series, the Hall of Famer did not make clear.
As for the aforementioned potential change to NASCAR’s rules surrounding racing in lower series, Earnhardt didn’t believe it would ultimately make a huge difference, noting how many of the current Cup drivers simply “don’t want” to drive in lower series and have no real need to do so.
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Currently, drivers who have three or more years of experience in the Cup are only permitted to compete in five Xfinity and five Truck races each year. What’s more, they are not allowed to enter the last regular season race or any of the following Playoff races. But as NASCAR president Steve O’Donnell revealed while discussing O’Reilly Auto Parts replacing Xfinity as the second series’s sponsor from 2026, this could soon change.
“We’re going to look at who is able to race in the series in the future as well and maybe make some changes down the road, but there’s a lot of opportunities for us to work with The CW and O’Reilly Auto Parts to take it to the next level so you’re operating from a really good base, which is awesome, but I think we’ve got a lot of growth ahead of us,” he said.
“You look at all of our series and we’ve had limits on, ‘Could a Cup driver compete? How many races could they compete?’ So we’ve certainly had discussions with The CW and in the Truck Series as well [about], ‘Does that rule as it stands now make the most sense to continue as it is? Do we tweak it?’ So we’re looking at a lot of things over the offseason and talking to a lot of the teams and drivers.”