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During the extended red flag for rain at Daytona, Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked about the NASCAR driver swap in the No. 88 car. Connor Zilisch hopped out after the first caution came out for the weather. Parker Kligerman hopped into the car.

Both Zilisch and Kligerman have done their fair share of driver swaps at Daytona. But that’s usually in January for the Rolex 24, not NASCAR.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows that the Zilisch injury is a tricky situation. He wants his driver to be able to contend for the regular season championship. He also wanted to give Kligerman the opportunity.

“Well, they’re about the same size. Getting somebody in and out of the car and getting them comfortable is important,” Dale Jr. said. “And Parker all but won the truck race here earlier this year. So, it’s just, we have a working relationship that you’re well aware of.

“He’s a good guy, a good friend, and I felt like he would be excited to do it. Really, there’s not too much else thought put into it. We want to give Connor the opportunity to get in the car and start, and hoping he was going to be well enough to do that, but we were never [considering] him doing any more than that. So, we needed somebody, and Parker was excited.”

For Dale Earnhardt Jr., this was about protecting Connor Zilisch and his career in the long run. After all, Zilisch will be moving on after this season to Trackhouse Racing.

“He’s awesome. It’s kinda strange, to be honest with you, because he’s so mature for his age. You kinda gotta hold him back a little bit in these type of situations,” Earnhardt continued. “We want to race for a championship, but we don’t want to risk the next two decades of what he can possibly do behind the wheel of a racecar. That’s not worth it.

“So, we will do whatever we need to do to make sure that we hand him off to his next opportunity in a good place and ready to go and rock. So, he’s already exceeded expectations this year for us and helped us have a really exciting, awesome year. But we’ll see what we can do the rest of the season. We just wanted to make all the right decisions that were good for his career long-term and try to make sure he understands how to prioritize today, versus the next 20 years.”

Parker Kligerman has the 88 car now. Let’s see what he does with the opportunity.

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