NASCAR‘s second tier will have an Earnhardt and a Truex as team-mates at Daytona International Speedway. No, this is not a sentence written in 2004.
Sam Hunt Racing announced Wednesday that the team will have two cars for the Xfinity Series season opener at Daytona. While Ryan Truex is in the #26 Toyota Supra, Jeffrey Earnhardt will pilot the #24.
The Earnhardt and Truex families are certainly no strangers to the other. In the 2000s, Ryan and older brother Martin Jr. were members of Dale Earnhardt, Inc., during which Martin won two Xfinity championships for affiliate Chance 2 Motorsports, which was owned by Jeffrey’s uncle Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dale and Martin were team-mates during the former’s part-time Xfinity competititon in this time period, with the former winning the Daytona opener in 2003 and 2004 for DEI and Chance 2.
Likewise, Ryan and Jeffrey were DEI drivers in what is now the ARCA Menards Series East in 2007 and 2008. The former won the series championship in 2009 and 2010, though for Michael Waltrip Racing.
“Our entire journey has been based around calculated growth,” said SHR owner Sam Hunt. “Running two cars at Daytona next month is another exciting step towards continuing to grow as a company and team. Having both Ryan and Jeffrey in our Toyota GR Supras will make for a fun start to 2022. They were Busch East teammates when their careers started at DEI, so it’s cool to see it come full circle at SHR.”
Both drivers join SHR for part-time slates after being full-timers in 2021. Earnhardt finished twenty-sixth in points for JD Motorsports with six top twenties and a best finish of eighteenth at Dover, while Truex placed sixteenth in the Camping World Truck Series standings with Niece Motorsports as he recorded three top tens, including a pair of top fives at Daytona and Talladega.
SHR fields the #26 full-time for multiple drivers, and Earnhardt is also expected to run races in the car as well as John Hunter Nemechek. The #24 was introduced at Indianapolis last year for Will Rodgers, who finished twenty-eighth as a team-mate to Kris Wright (featured image from said race). At the Charlotte Roval, the team partnered with JD Motorsports to also field the #15 for Wright.
