Dale Earnhardt Jr., you’re such a tease.
But in a good way.
The thought had been planted in people’s minds earlier this year, when it was noted that the trademark on Dale Earnhardt Inc.’s stylized No. 8 was was set to expire and Dale Jr. himself applied to take it over.
What could it possibly mean!?!
The possibilities made one’s mind spin.
At worst, we could get the kind of great throwback merchandise that wasn’t available all the way back in 2017, when Earnhardt retired from NASCAR Cup Series competition.
At best?
Don’t get me started.
Then Monday (Oct. 21) came.
Earnhardt had to go and change his X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook profile pictures and post the gem below.
Well, NASCAR Nation’s online hive mind lost its collective mind.
It would take less than 12 hours for all the questions being asked to receive answers.
And some of them were a little surprising.
Be still my heart.
A red Chevrolet with an 8 on the side and Bud on the hood hasn’t made my heart flutter this much since a mid-2000s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
It’s been 17 years, people.
As one person on X noted this morning, the New England Patriots were still undefeated the last time this scheme was seen on a racetrack.
But golly, it’s going to happen again.
Just … not on a NASCAR track.
Honestly, I don’t care if it’s going to be run at a South Carolina short track in late November instead of Bristol Motor Speedway in September.
It will still be magical.
In the 24 hours surrounding the announcement of the reunion of Earnhardt with Budweiser, more than once I saw on the NASCAR subreddit references to the No. 9 and “Satan.”
This was, of course, a reference to the previous owner of the trademark on the DEI No. 8: Teresa Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Sr.‘s widow.
Her relationship to the NASCAR community — and the Earnhardt family — since his death in 2001 has been, well, awkward at best and baffling at its worst.
There’s a reason Dale Jr. left Dale Earnhardt Inc. at the end of 2007 and the team doesn’t exist anymore.
And that’s just the racing side of things.
I won’t pretend to know Dale Jr.’s full feelings toward his stepmother. But on Tuesday’s (Oct. 22) episode of his podcast, the Dale Jr. Download, while discussing his acquisition of the No. 8 trademark, he expressed genuine appreciation for her when it came to her protectiveness of certain things connected to the Earnhardt name.
“I never thought that the trademark would not be renewed,” Earnhardt said. “I was certainly surprised when Teresa decided not to renew that trademark. Not sure why, but we applied.”
Dale Jr. said “one of the things that I really appreciate about Teresa is her ability and awareness in terms of protecting trademarks and likeness.
“She was always really great at making sure that she took really good care of those things, when it came to dad, when it came to me, or DEI or all of those things, right?”
Earnhardt then mentioned the heated legal battle Teresa undertook in the wake of her husband’s death to ensure that his autopsy photos wouldn’t see the light of day via media outlets that attempted to gain access to them.
She was successful.
“I certainly didn’t want them released,” Earnhardt said. “I was really impressed with how hard Teresa fought that and thankful that she did. Because I don’t think … I was naive, you know, and I don’t think I had the vision to understand why that was important and why she was fighting that so, so hard.
“But I’m so thankful that she did. Took a lot of effort, took a lot of traveling and [she] spent a ton of money to do it.”
Returning to the matter of the No. 8, Dale Jr. said that as long as Teresa owned the trademark, he “was very happy that it was in a safe place.
“I knew that it was always going to be fine. But if she doesn’t want to pay for the trademark anymore, I’m like, ‘Well, we better get that.’ Because I want it safe. I want it somewhere it can be taken care of.”
And he didn’t just want the Bud No. 8’s return to be for a merchandise grab.
“If we raced the car, then I would feel comfortable with the merch being made and there would be a purpose,” Earnhardt said. “So that’s what kind of got us talking to Bud about it. Like, ‘Hey, man, we got this opportunity to kind of come together and do something on a small scale, in terms of the grassroots level.'”
Wait, so, you’re saying …
“I don’t see this ever, ever going anywhere beyond this, like Xfinity or anywhere like that. So I don’t think I want it to do that.”
Oh, well. I’ll take what I can get.
Excuse me while I go preorder my diecast.
About the author
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.
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“Excuse me while I go preorder my diecast” , I have done the same really appreciate those memeories
Every Dale Jr fan right now.