Cool Throwback, Weird Timing

NASCAR sponsorships can typically be separated into two categories.

One is your normal brand or product wanting to promote itself to an audience (or a business-to-business deal with a team).

The other is a sponsorship that’s promoting an event or a piece of media, like the decade’s worth of movie sponsorships that have come and gone in NASCAR.

May 22 brought news of a very cool, yet weirdly specific third type of sponsor activation. It combines the branding promotion with the event promotion.

However, when the related paint scheme finally hits the track, one thing will be … off. In what has to be a first, the event being promoted will have already happened.

Of course, I’m talking about JR Motorsports’ unveiling of the throwback paint scheme Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive in a zMAX CARS Tour event at Anderson Motor Speedway on Aug. 16. 

Twenty-four years later, Earnhardt will once again pilot one of his most iconic NASCAR Cup Series paint schemes. JRM has teamed up with Budweiser and Major League Baseball to re-create his paint scheme from the 2001 Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

That’s when Earnhardt won the first Cup race held at Daytona after Dale Earnhardt Sr. was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Earnhardt Jr.’s car that night was a promotion for that summer’s MLB All-Star Game.

So what’s the 2025 remix promoting?

The first-ever MLB game to be played at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Years after a college football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Virginia Tech Hokies was played in the track’s infield, baseball fans will get to watch the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds take their turn … on Aug. 2.

Yes, when Earnhardt pilots his throwback scheme at Anderson, the event emblazoned on the No. 8 — the MLB Speedway Classic — will be two weeks old.

Timing is everything! But let’s not kid ourselves. None of the brands involved probably care when the All-Star throwback is on the track.

The real promotion is going on right now.

More people — 219,000 as of this writing — saw Earnhardt’s tweet announcing the scheme than can fit into Anderson (about 5,000).

North of 787,000 users have seen MLB’s own tweet about the scheme (and the game itself.

I’m willing to bet more people saw those two tweets than will actually watch the CARS race online come Aug. 16.

Simply announcing the paint scheme’s existence — and all the sweet merch you can, and will, buy related to it — lit up the Internet today. The work’s been done.

(The red Budweiser shirt is my favorite. But $45? For a T-shirt? Yikes).

Also, in what can only be an example of Earnhardt synergy, this sponsor partnership was announced the same day the first two episodes of Amazon Prime’s Dale Earnhardt docuseries premiered.

And the same day a really good longform story on Earnhardt Jr. and his relationship with his father by the Washington Post was published.

Sure, it’s the week of the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 (and some race in Monaco).

But it’s also Earnhardt week. Enjoy it while it lasts. We probably won’t get a week like this again.

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.