Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a third-generation American professional stock car racing driver, champion team owner, businessman, NASCAR analyst, and 2022 inductee into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He won a record 15-straight NASCAR Most Popular Driver awards from 2003 to 2017, consecutive NASCAR Busch Series Championships in 1998 and 1999, and the prestigious Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014.
The CARS Tour’s Late Model Stock and Pro Late Model classes have never competed at Nashville Fairgrounds during their respective lifespans. A talented group of drivers are expected to make the trip to Nashville Fairgrounds across the two tours, among them being CARS Tour co-owner and NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his No. 8 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet.
As a driver, Earnhardt Jr. has won 26 NASCAR Cup Series races and 24 NASCAR Xfinity Series races. The 50-year-old still competes in regional Late Model events around the Southeast in Chevrolets prepared by the championship-winning Late Model team at JR Motorsports. Earnhardt also netted 15 NMPA NASCAR Most Popular Driver Awards (2003-2017) over his career. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2021 and was also named one of NASCAR’s 75 Greatest Drivers in 2023.
The NASCAR Hall of Famer won two NASCAR Xfinity Series championships, in 1998 and 1999, before embarking on his Cup Series career. As a team owner for JR Motorsports, he has added four NXS championships since 2014 with drivers Chase Elliott, William Byron, Tyler Reddick and Justin Allgaier.
Earnhardt has extended his entrepreneurship and business portfolio beyond the track. He continues to leverage extreme crossover appeal to garner media attention with a social media following of more than six million across his three primary platforms – X, Facebook and Instagram.
In 2004, Earnhardt Jr. won the Daytona 500, the crown jewel of NASCAR’s top series. Ten years later, in 2014, he added another, cementing his legacy as one of the best to ever mix it up on restrictor-plate tracks. He also won four straight races at Talladega Superspeedway from the fall of 2001 to the spring of 2003.