NASCAR: Will 45-year Earnhardt streak remain intact?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. competed in a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Homestead last month. But an Earnhardt has not yet competed in a Cup Series race this year. The last time that did not happen was in 1974.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has now competed in a NASCAR Xfinity Series race in each of the three seasons since he retired from full-time Cup Series competition after the 2017 season.

The 45-year-old Kannapolis, North Carolina native competed in last month’s 167-lap Hooters 250 at the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Homestead-Miami Speedway oval in Homestead, Florida, the first of two races of the track’s doubleheader.

This start was his lone scheduled start of the season. The race had been scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 21, but it was moved back by nearly three months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Earnhardt drove his #8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet to a fifth place finish.

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Also competing in this race was Jeffrey Earnhardt, Dale Jr.’s nephew. Jeffrey competed in both races at Homestead-Miami Speedway that weekend, and he has now competed for JD Motorsports in each of the first 11 races that have been contested since NASCAR returned to action after a 10-week hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Jeffrey and Dale Jr. competing in the Xfinity Series this season contributed to keeping a streak alive that dates back to the 1975 season. In at least each of the last 46 years, and Earnhardt has competed in NASCAR on some level.

But another streak of a similar nature dates back to the 1975 season and has not yet been extended in 2020. In each of the last 45 seasons, an Earnhardt has competed in the Cup Series. Jeffrey appears to be the only Earnhardt who could possibly keep this streak alive this year.

Ralph was the first Earnhardt to compete in the Cup Series. He made his debut in 1956 and retired after 1966. The Earnhardt name returned to the Cup Series in 1975 with the late Dale Earnhardt, and it has been back ever since.

Dale Sr. competed in 27 consecutive seasons from 1975 to 2001, when he was killed in a tragic last-lap accident in the season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Dale Jr. had begun competing the prior year, and he made his final Cup Series start in the 2017 season finale.

Jeffrey made his Cup Series debut in 2015, and he competed in at least one race in the series from 2016 to 2019 as well.

But how might he keep the streak alive?

Through Floyd Mayweather Jr. of all people. Yes, that Floyd Mayweather.

During the unexpected coronavirus pandemic, Sports Business Journal’s Adam Stern reported that Earnhardt is seen as the likely candidate to drive the #50 Chevrolet that Floyd Mayweather’s new team, The Money Team Racing, is expected to enter at some point this season.

The Money Team responded by publishing a video that ended with the sound of a boxing fight bell.

https://twitter.com/tmtracing50/status/1241554582356049921

Despite the fact that the schedule was overhauled by the pandemic, The Money Team Racing’s debut is still slated to come at some point before the 2020 season comes to an end. No deal has been confirmed, but it is still believed that this is in the works.

As if the year 2020 couldn’t get any weirder, we could now potentially see a NASCAR-based streak which goes back to the 1970s and involves the name Earnhardt kept alive by arguably the greatest professional boxer of all-time.