Dale Earnhardt Jr. has run just one NASCAR Xfinity Series race in each of the last three seasons. See, the third generation driver retired from full time Cup competition in 2017. He then ran once in 2018 and 2019 for his NXS team at Richmond and Darlington respectively. He’d finish fourth in Richmond and fifth last September in Darlington.

On Saturday, he strapped into the No. 8 Chevrolet one more time at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Again, he’d finish fifth.

After the race, he admitted that he was overly nervous for this start. Without any seat time since September and no practice, his nerves were running high in the days leading up to the Hooters 250.

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“Once I fired the motor and started messing with things inside the car and learning where everything was, and we got rolling around with pace laps and I really felt pretty comfortable at that point,” Earnhardt said. “But I worked myself up for the last 72 hours.”

Now, Earnhardt admits that this could very well be his final NASCAR start. Homestead was his last Cup race, so why not his last race overall too.

“I really enjoy it, I really do, but I think there’s got to be a point to make the change to broadcasting entirely,” Earnhardt said. “But with that said, being in the car I certainly learned a ton that’s going to help me in the booth.

“I just have to think about it. I certainly don’t want to run more (than one Xfinity race a year). One’s plenty and it’s a great series, but we’ll just see how it goes.”

If this is it, Earnhardt has all the confidence in the sport moving forward saying that they’re in good hands for the future in terms of leadership.

“I have so much confidence in our leadership,” Earnhardt said. “They were communicating with me throughout the week with their plans and I don’t know that I’ve been more proud of the leadership in our sport than I have been in the last two weeks.

“I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve been commenting and speaking up and I’m so glad that the sport is speaking up and the drivers are banding together with their own personal feelings about all this. It makes me feel so good to see a lot of people talking.

“We’ve had a lot of uncertainty with our leadership. There’s been some changes at the top over the last couple years. And now when we get into these moments when our society is looking for change, I love what I’m seeing out of the leadership in our sport to be a part of that change.

“I like what (NASCAR president Steve Phelps) is doing. I think (NASCAR vice president) Steve O’Donnell’s doing a great job, and so I’m so much more confident, I guess, in the direction of our sport with those guys at the helm than I’ve ever been in a long time.”