Dale Jr.'s iconic baseball car is back for Speedway Classic

The record number of fans attending the MLB Speedway Classic won't just see a historic, first-of-its kind baseball game at Bristol Motor Speedway. They'll also see a blast from NASCAR's -- and MLB's -- past.

That's because racing legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. is bringing back his iconic No. 8 Budweiser / MLB All-Star Game car -- AKA, "The Baseball Car" -- in honor of the Speedway Classic.

The new car will be on display before Saturday's game between the Braves and Reds at The Last Great Colosseum in Bristol, Tenn. It's inspired by the original car Earnhardt drove, from its red-and-white paint job to the Budweiser and MLB emblems to the baseball stitching design that runs along the bottom of the car and along its roof. But instead of the All-Star Game, the 2025 car is emblazoned with the Speedway Classic logo.

"The baseball car, to me, represents probably my proudest moment as a driver -- or maybe the biggest moment, or the heaviest, the most emotional moment in my career: when we won at Daytona in July in 2001," Earnhardt said in an interview with MLB.com on Thursday. "And a lot of people love that car, and know that car as soon as they see that car."

Earnhardt famously raced the original Budweiser / MLB All-Star Game No. 8 car at the 2001 Pepsi 400 -- his first trip back to Daytona International Speedway after the tragic death of his father, Dale Sr., in a crash at the Daytona 500 earlier that year. That was the only race Dale Jr. ever drove in the car, and he won it for his dad.

"It ran that one race," Earnhardt said. "It only ran this race that one time, and everybody knows that race. So [now] it just felt like, 'Hey, why don't we continue this?' I'll run another race. We'll do the baseball car, we can help promote the game at Bristol. And my dad was a massive Braves fan. So of course I'm a Braves fan."

After Dale Jr. won that race in 2001 at Daytona, he stared up into the grandstand at 100,000 fans cheering for him. They felt the same catharsis that he did.

"To go out there and win in that moment just doesn't seem real," Earnhardt said. "It's hard to even believe today, after all these years, that that really is how things happened. It just feels like a movie."

Nearly 25 years later, NASCAR fans haven't forgotten. And they'll be reminded of the emotions of that race again when they see the baseball car reincarnated.

"That night was just -- I can't even describe it to you, what it felt like to get out of the car," Earnhardt said. "So I think when people see this car, it takes them back to that moment of closure, it takes them back to that moment of being able to smile again."

Earnhardt will race it himself two weeks later in the zMAX CARS Tour event at Anderson Motor Speedway in South Carolina on Aug. 16. Earnhardt and fellow NASCAR icons Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Justin Marks bought the CARS Tour in 2023 with the goal of growing the grassroots level of motorsports, and Earnhardt himself drives in a few races a year in the twilight of his career. ("Kind of like a Major League Baseball player going back to the Minors for a year or two," he described it.)

Starting last year, Earnhardt reunited with Budweiser to bring back some of his most famous racecar designs. First, he brought back his classic all-red No. 8 Bud King of Beers car, one of the most recognizable paint schemes in racing history. Up next is the throwback red-and-white car for the Speedway Classic.

"It's a really cool-looking racecar. Baseball is America, and apple pie, and all that good stuff … That's what I hope people pull from it," Earnhardt said.

"It weaves MLB into this whole thing, into the fabric of this whole story."

Earnhardt first started racing Budweiser cars as a rookie driver, inspired by his friend and fellow NASCAR driver Kenny Schrader, who was sponsored by Budweiser before him. Driving the No. 8 Budweiser car, Dale Jr. became a star and fan favorite.

"When I became the driver for the car in my rookie year, it was a big deal to be partnered with Budweiser. They were huge," Earnhardt said. "I am so proud of the relationship that I had with Budweiser. To carry that brand on that race car before I was anything in my career, before I was very well known -- to be able to carry such an iconic brand was such a break for me."

The 2001 baseball car wasn't the only MLB paint job Earnhardt raced with, it's just the most famous, because of the race he won in it. But he raced in All-Star Game or World Series-themed cars for several years in the early 2000s.

"I was always involved in [the design of] all the cars that I race," Earnhardt said. "I wanted to love what it looked like, to get in it and drive it."

Thanks to the baseball cars, for the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, Earnhardt even got to play in the Legends & Celebrities Softball Game. He knocked a single off Dave Winfield, and caught popups off the bats of the late, great Ryne Sandberg … and Coolio.

Now he's involved in another unique MLB event in the Speedway Classic. Besides the Budweiser baseball car being on display at Bristol Motor Speedway, there will also be a "Bristol Bud Crew" -- wearing racing suits featuring Earnhardt's No. 8 and the Budweiser Clydesdale emblem -- pouring beers and helping fans get pumped up for the game.

As for the game, Earnhardt thinks it's going to be an instant classic. Baseball fans have never gotten to watch a Major League game at a racetrack, let alone one as storied and unique as Bristol Motor Speedway.

"I think the optics of it have got to be surreal," Earnhardt said. "Sitting there and seeing the game played out in front of you, but also off in the corner of your eyes, the banking of a racetrack. And the mix of NASCAR and baseball all at the same time -- even though there won't be a race going on, you'll know you're at a racetrack. That in itself has got to be pretty cool to physically be there, and be a witness to it."

The Speedway Classic is set to shatter the attendance record for an MLB regular-season game, with more than 85,000 tickets sold. And Bristol Motor Speedway, known for its short track and steep banking, will be a baseball stadium unlike any other, for both the fans and the players.

"There is not another racetrack in the country, in my opinion, that is physically like Bristol," Earnhardt said. "I hope that the game has a unique energy to it, and I hope the players feel that. I hope when they come out to the field and look around, they take it in and soak it up. I hope that experience is a great one for the players, because if they're having fun and they're enjoying what's going on, and it's neat for them, I think that'll bleed out into the audience and the fans in attendance."

When Dale Jr. was a kid watching Dale Sr. race, the one track he always had to go to was Bristol. The one race he couldn't miss was the Bristol Night Race, with its raucous atmosphere, which the MLB Speedway Classic just might evoke.

"If I want to send somebody who's never been to a race, and I want to make them a fan, I know the one way to do it. And that's to send them to the Bristol Night Race," Earnhardt said. "It is insane. And if you've been to other Major League stadiums during a big game, that is as close as NASCAR gets to it."