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Few can argue that JR Motorsports is one of the best teams in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. Its success is not just about winning, but how many of its drivers have moved up to the elite Cup Series. But team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. has to be scratching his head when looking at the 2021 stat sheets after a race weekend.
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JR Motorsports fields four cars, three of them with full-time wheelmen — Justin Allgaier, Michael Annett, and Noah Gragson. The fourth entry has seen Miguel Paludo and Josh Berry getting seat time. On paper, it is a formidable group of JR Motorsports drivers, yet their overall performance has been, well, underwhelming through the first three races.
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It may be hard to believe that collectively they have posted just two top-10 finishes, one coming from Paludo, a P7 on the Daytona Road Course, in his only start of the season. Berry has the other. Their combined age is 67, with Paludo being the eldest of the pair at 37.
Berry will be making his first career Xfinity Series start in Las Vegas and third of the year in the No. 8 JR Motorsports Camaro.
“I’m really looking forward to getting to Las Vegas this weekend with this team,” Berry said in a JRM release. “It felt good getting that first mile-and-a-half race under my belt last weekend in Homestead, and hopefully, some of the things we learned there can transfer over to Vegas. There are still things that we can work on, and I feel really confident that we will continue to build and get better and have a strong run on Saturday.”
So the JR Motorsports trio that is supposed to be putting up the numbers has one big goose egg in the three columns that matter most — wins, top-fives, and top-10s.
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What happened to JR Motorsports?
JR Motorsports longest-tenured driver, Justin Allgaier, has bumped into things in two of his three starts. They were sandwiched around a dismal performance on the Daytona Road Course, where he started P25 and actually lost a spot at the end. The 34-year old is coming off a three-win season for JR Motorsports where he was the runner-up to series champion Austin Cindric.
“This season has definitely not gotten off to the start our No.7 team wanted, but Las Vegas is the perfect place for us to turn things around," Allgaier said in a JRM release. “Our Camaro has a history of showing a lot of speed there, and it’s just a track that I really enjoy racing on. Last year we were able to pick up a stage win and lead some laps, and I’m confident that we can go there and have success this weekend.”
Michael Annett, also 34, has been equally ineffective for JR Motorsports, crashing out in the Daytona season-opener and followed that up with a P15 and P13. He has just one career victory, and it came for JR Motorsports in the 2019 Racing Experience 300 at Daytona International Speedway. Annett is coming off a season where he posted 22 top-10s in 33 starts. In other words, he was within striking distance of the race leaders. Now he looks to Las Vegas Motor Speedway to get going.
“The last two seasons at Las Vegas Chevrolet has been solid. We led eight laps in the fall there in our last start and were in contention. We’ve had some bum luck so far this season, getting caught in a crash at Daytona, but Mike Bumgarner and the team are giving me great Camaros every week, and we’re starting to build some momentum. I always look forward to the West Coast swing.”
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Finally, Noah Gragson is the young buck of the JR Motorsports organization at 22, and in a crazy mixed-up schedule caused by the pandemic, he was solid. A pair of victories, 17 top-fives, and 25 top-10s earned him a spot in the Xfinity Series playoffs. He would end up ninth.
“We’ve had really fast race cars this year, but we, unfortunately, don’t have the finishes to show for it," said Gragson. "We’ve had a car to win each week; we just need to be able to put a complete race together. There’s no better time for that than this weekend when I return back home to Las Vegas. Hopefully we can put this Camaro back into victory lane to turn our season around.”
To be kind, Las Vegas has not been kind to JR Motorsports as it has just one win in 52 previous starts, and it came from a Hall of Famer Mark Martin in 2008.
So will this year be any different? Past records notwithstanding, JR Motorsports has 200 laps to climb out of its early hole.
