One of the most powerful working moms on the NASCAR circuit, not known for women leaders, is Kelley Earnhardt, general manager at JR Motorsports. The Earnhardt name is synonymous with racing, a sport that often makes people think only of fast cars, but they forget that it takes a business to make it all come together. That’s where Kelley Earnhardt comes in. Earnhardt runs JR Motorsports with her brother Dale Earnhardt Jr. (hence JR). She has also signed one of the most well-known women on the track, Danica Patrick, to race for their team.

 Earnhardt took time from her formidable schedule to update Working Mother on how she balances a career heading her famous family’s business and the care of her daughters after her divorce from NASCAR crew chief Jimmy Elledge.

You must be incredibly busy as general manager at JR Motorsports. Do you wish you had more downtime with the girls?
I think you always want as much time with your kids as you can possibly have, but life hands you obligations, which one of those is work. I think that's true for most families and I think you just have to balance that time and it's the time that I'm at work versus the time that I spend with my girls.


Do you share custody with the children’s father, Jimmy Elledge? How do you balance childcare?
I have primary custody and he has them two days a week. He travels with the NASCAR circuit so he's generally gone Thursday through Sunday and so he has them Monday to Tuesday, generally, if his schedule allows that. In the end, obviously we share holiday time, birthday time and summer weeks, vacations, things like that. We have a flexible schedule and we have a good relationship. We can work together on our schedules and allow time for both of us. His schedule makes it a little more difficult because he does travel every weekend. We have a nanny as well that helps during the days. She's a part of our family and she's been with us for about four years and helps get the kids from school and other activities that they might be involved in, practice and what not. She will travel to the races with the kids if they want to go, whether they're going with myself or a lot of times, they'll go and stay with Jimmy in his motor home. She'll take them to probably four or five races a year and spend some time with him.
 


How are your daughters? How old are they now? Do you see any racing in their future?
My girls–Karsyn is now nine, as she would say, "nine and a half," and Kennedy is four and they're doing fantastic. Karsyn has played basketball this winter and her team won the championship so she was really excited about that. Kennedy entered preschool this year, which is something new for her, and she's enjoying that and going there three days a week for half a day and participating in a bunch of fun stuff there so she's liking that. Gosh, as far as racing in their future, I mean both of them seem to be daredevils. Karsyn rides four-wheelers and she's driven her golf cart since she was about five, I think. They like to go fast. I have a Camaro, which we call the "Hot Rod" and they like to ride in that. They want me to go fast, stuff like that. We haven't started any kind of racing with their ages, but I wouldn't rule it out.
 


What do you and the girls like to do together?
We do kind of the typical family things with vacations. We just went to Fort Lauderdale in April for spring break and stayed down there at a friend's house and just enjoyed the pool and the beach and hung out. When we're home, we spend time with some of our good friends and their kids. On the weekends, we play outside. We have a pool, so we really enjoy that in the summertime. In the evenings, a lot of times Kennedy loves to read, so that's something her and I do and a lot of mornings before work I'll sit down with her on the couch and read a book to her before I go or when I come home in the evenings, do the same. Karsyn likes to play board games, so we try to do stuff like that. Sometimes it gets a little tedious because Kennedy's only four so if we try to do a board game or something together, sometimes we go by her rules and not the actual board game rules.

Danica Patrick is a famous female auto racing driver who recently joined JR Motorsports. How did you convince her to join the team?
I don't think there was any convincing that was needed. Danica spent some time talking to a variety of teams and when we were originally approached by her and by her team, we were working really hard to keep Brad Keselowski here as our driver and so we didn't feel like we had a car for her to drive if we were able to keep Brad full time. Our second car we would run Dale in part time. We didn't have a full time second car at that point. After she spent some time talking to some various teams, we reconvened for conversation in October (2009). There pretty much wasn't any question. I was really excited to have her interested in coming to JR Motorsports. Working with her and being the team that gave her her start in the Nationwide series.

You’ve stated that you and your brother can keep your “business relationship and your personal relationship separate.” Do you ever slip and let the big sister part of you take over the professional side?
I'm sure it's happened a time or two, maybe more. We have a vested interest in doing right by each other whether it's business or personal and on occasion you can let the personal side take over, the big sister side take over, but I always try to get that out front, say, "Look, I'm wearing my big sister hat now. Let me say this to you," or "This is me, Kelley the general manager of JR Motorsports stating what I believe in." We've done well with it. We've worked together since 2001. We're working on nine years on the business side of it. I think we do a good job at it.

Is there a sense of family pride that motivates you and Dale to do well in your careers?
Well definitely, there is. With our heritage as an Earnhardt and what our dad accomplished and our grandfather accomplished in the sport. We definitely have pride that goes along with what they've accomplished and being a part of that Earnhardt heritage and accomplishing things in the sport. I think it goes back to what I said earlier, too. We have a responsibility to continue that as well and to continue to build on the legacy that my dad left, that my family left. We take a great deal of pride in that.