Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s No. 8 back for MLB’s Speedway Classic

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NASCAR’s iconic No. 8 will feature once again at the high banks as part of MLB’s marquee event of the season.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will reunite with an updated version of his red-and-white color scheme in support of the MLB Speedway Classic, set for Aug. 2 between the Cincinnati Reds and the Atlanta Braves at Bristol Motor Speedway. 

The iconic racetrack in Bristol, Tennessee, will be temporarily converted into a baseball diamond in the latest move to hold games in unique settings. MLB has previously played games in places like the Field of Dreams in Iowa; in Birmingham, Alabama, to celebrate Negro League baseball; and overseas in London.

And while it will be MLB’s first foray into holding a game at a racetrack, Earnhardt, Jr. is no stranger to Bristol  -having raced there throughout his NASCAR Cup Series career.

There’s also a baseball connection to one of the most recognizable designs in motorsports. Earnhardt piloted the No. 8 red-and-white design – adorned with a Budweiser/MLB All-Star scheme – in July 2001 on his way to winning the Pepsi 400. That race also marked his return to Daytona International Speedway after the death of his father, Dale Earnhardt, at the track earlier that year.

The Aug. 2 game will be the first regular-season MLB game held in Tennessee, and could break baseball’s attendance record, which currently stands at 115,000 from a 2008 preseason game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. The Bristol racetrack has a listed capacity of 146,000 and saw more than 159,000 people attend a Tennessee-Virginia Tech college football game in 2016.