CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. thought it was a joke.
It was January 1998 and a young Junior – with no set plans for the 1998 racing season the following month — stood in the Dale Earnhardt Inc. XFINITY Series shop, staring at a blue and white No. 3 ACDelco Chevrolet.
His name was above the door.
“Tony (Eury) Sr. and them were standing there and laughing,” Earnhardt Jr. recalled Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “And I was like, ‘man, this is a joke, it’s (expletive), it’s not even funny, man’ – because I thought it was a real joke. There was no way in hell that I thought I would get an opportunity to drive that car. They were like, ‘it ain’t no joke, it’s real.’
WATCH: Dale Jr. unveils ‘important scheme to (him)’ in Darlington throwback
“And I was like, ‘how did I get into the conversation?’ … Because I think Dad was spending half of the sponsorship with his own money (and) ACDelco was covering the other part, and (Eury) was like, ‘I told him if he’s going to spend his own money, he ought to spend it on his son. Why not give him a shot?’
“So, basically, Tony Sr. went to bat for me and told Dad, ‘We’ll take Junior and me and Tony Jr. will make a driver out of him’ — and that’s what happened.”
Fast forward nearly 20 years: That blue-and-white ACDelco scheme serves as the inspiration for his throwback No. 88 scheme for Darlington Raceway’s annual Southern 500 on Labor Day weekend. Earnhardt was on hand for the reveal at the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Tuesday afternoon, helping to unveil the retro scheme in what is perhaps his final Southern 500. For the Hendrick Motorsports driver, the ACDelco scheme is very personal and represents a pivotal moment in his career.
“That’s how I found out, just a month before Daytona that I was going to race this car,” Earnhardt said, with the car freshly unveiled his right. “That’s the way I stumbled into knowing about this job and that I was going to be a full-time racer in ’98.”
MORE: See all the throwback paint schemes
Driving that No. 3 AC Delco scheme in 1998 and 1999, Earnhardt won 13 races and back-to-back XFINITY Series championships in his first two years in full-time series competition.
Prior to that, Earnhardt wasn’t sure if he would even be in racing the next season, let alone in 20 years; he had lost his sponsor on his Late Model ride the season before and was left searching for anything he could drive.
“Everybody I was calling had deals and didn’t have any interest in me,” Earnhardt said. “I called James Finch and (today) he said it might have been the biggest mistake he made in his career … He was switching around drivers, had Dale Shaw and a couple other boys. He was in between drivers … And I said, ‘Why don’t you let me run your car at the beach?’ And he’s like, ‘I’m going to do this other deal.’ So, I had no idea what to do.”
The thought of Earnhardt lacking in sponsorship or a ride is astounding today, as a crowd of fans stood by the stage Tuesday — some of whom had arrived at 5 p.m. the night before — just to see the sport’s most popular driver. That scheme is associated with an opportunity, a path formed in his career that led him to where he is today.
Earnhardt hopes he can give it a good run at the track ‘Too Tough To Tame;’ He’s never won at Darlington, but owns 10 top-10 finishes in 21 starts, with a career-best second coming in 2014.
“This scheme means a good deal to me and I hope we have as much success at Darlington as we had in this car in ’98/’99,” Earnhardt said. “We almost won at Darlington in one of those races in (’98) – we were door-to-door with Dick Trickle coming to the finish line and lost by a few feet.
“So, hopefully we can recreate some of that magic.”
This marks the third straight year that Darlington has hosted a throwback weekend, with this year’s celebrated time period falling from 1985-89.