“What an Idiot We are Now!” Kelly Earnhardt Regrets Not Buying Cup Charters for Just $2 Million  

One major goal of Junior Motorsports when they started racing in the NASCAR second division back in 2005 was to one day become a Cup team. But the co-owners of the team Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelly Earnhardt, has failed to achieve the target, as other than two part-time Daytona 500 entries, JRM has never raced in the Cup.

With the charter now made permanent following 23XI-FRM lawsuit settlement, its is going to be more challenging that ever for the Earnhardt’s to make a full-time comeback to the elite division. This wouldn’t have happened if the owners were not apprehensive about the charter system, they would’ve invested in one.

Charters were issued to the 36 teams at the time in 2016. Then they started trading. We were happy being an Xfinity team, and we’re still happy being an Xfinity team. At the time, the mindset was, where is their money to be made? And how is this going to work? My apprehension to the charter system the entire time was the fact that they weren’t permanent. It didn’t make sense to me.

Kelly Earnhardt said on her podcast.

Right now, a Cup charter cost almost $100, a major investment even for the richest racing families in the sport. There was a time Kelly Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. could’ve bought a charter for just $2 million. They regret not investing when it was cheap and now that the value skyrocketed, they need to secure a massive outside investment to enter the first division, with almost no charter on sale.

When we started seeing these charters trade for what we thought was a lot — $2 million, like, ‘Oh, my God!’ We couldn’t believe that there were people who were willing to come in and buy those. Hindsight’s 2020, and look what it’s shown us. The charter values have continued to grow. Now they’re permanent. Yeah, you look at those situations, you thought, what an idiot we are now…

Kelly Earnhardt added via Business of Motorsports.

Kelly Earnhardt explains how tough NASCAR business was working alongside Dale Earnhardt

In the same conversation, Kelly Earnhardt Miller talked about the time she worked on the NASCSAR business with her seven times Cup title winning father Dale Earnhardt Sr. She admitted that it tough working with the racing legend, as she was young and immature.

At the time with my dad, when he was living, I had a really tough time with the way that he allowed us to be part of the business. You know, and he allowed us to be part of things in a very arm’s length way that was helpful in the way to learn from other people and not have to worry about those family boundaries that happen, especially when you’re less mature, right?

Kelly Earnhardt said.

But the experience from the young age helped her to be one of the biggest in the NASCAR business at the moment. The Earnhardt is still playing a key role in developing the sport everywhere they possibly can and that is delivering results.

When you’re a young 20-something-year-old, and you don’t have the different experiences that I think are so important, you know, you have to be exposed to things in order to get those experiences.

Kelly Earnhardt added.

The comments from the veteran team owner shows how the late racing legend help his children to develop and become key part of the sport he invested his whole life into. It would be interesting to see if the Earnhardt’s can expand their family racing legacy one day by racing full-time in the Cup again.

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