Dale Earnhardt Jr. addresses letting ‘a**hole’ Kyle Larson replace Connor Zilisch at Texas

With Connor Zilisch suffering a back injury at Talladega Superspeedway, JR Motorsports went into the bullpen for this past Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway. Kyle Larson piloted the No. 88 Chevrolet and drove the car to Victory Lane.

But the idea of Larson being in a JRM car seemed hard to believe just a couple weeks ago. Following his double victory in Xfinity and Cup Series competition at Bristol, Larson said his main motivation in racing in Xfinity is to embarrass the competition. JRM co-owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. took issue with that comment, urging him to sign up for more races this season.

Earnhardt said on Tuesday’s “Dale Jr. Download” podcast that Larson had previously shown interest in driving for JRM in Xfinity competition. The offer to replace Zilisch first went out to Ross Chastain, but the Trackhouse Racing driver couldn’t do it. The No. 88 ride then became Larson’s at Texas.

“Larson was like, ‘Yep, I’m in.’ He’ll do anything. Race more? You got it,” Earnhardt said. “The funny thing about that was we were just on this show a couple weeks ago after he said he wanted to embarrass the field — which we are a part of the field, we said, ‘Hey, a**hole, sign up for a couple more.’ If you gonna say that, give me all the opportunity in the world to get you. And he’s like, ‘Nope, don’t got anymore.’ Then, the universe heard all that and said let me show y’all something. And that’s how the universe works.

“There I was with Kyle Larson, who’s nearly an automatic win plugged into your car, and now he’s going to go try embarrass the field in our car. I texted him, ‘I feel a little bit different about this now.’ When he’s driving your car, it’s great.”

Kyle Larson takes checkered flag at Texas driving for JRM

Larson won at Texas, but it’s hard to say he embarrassed the competition. He led 32 laps, but it was fellow JRM driver Justin Allgaier who paced the field with 99 laps led. Allgaier had an unfortunate end to his race after the contact with Kris Wright while leading, but Earnhardt was glad to see his veteran driver making it hard on Larson.

“I was also very happy to see our No. 7 — Justin Allgaier — making it as hard as he could for Larson. They had a really spirited battle,” Earnhardt said. “… Justin was in a car that had a chance to win and with all the chaos that happened late in the race and how it got challenging for even Larson to pull off, Justin could have been in the middle of all that with a chance to seize an opportunity.”

Of course, this was just a one-off for Larson and JRM. With Xfinity having a two-week break, Earnhardt expects Zilisch to be back for the May 24 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“He should be able to return for Charlotte,” Earnhardt said. “That’s the hope.”