Zero of the 94 NASCAR national series races contested during the 2026 season featured an Earnhardt behind the wheel.
That had not been the case since 1974, which was the year before Dale Earnhardt Sr. made his NASCAR Cup Series debut.
It was also more than two decades before the Craftsman Truck Series even existed (and nearly one decade before the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series began).
51-year NASCAR Earnhardt streak ends in 2026
Ralph Earnhardt, Dale's father, competed at the Cup level for six total seasons (1956, 1957, and 1961 to 1964), but the streak began when son Dale made his Cup debut in 1975. Dale would go on to compete each year until his death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
The seven-time Cup champion also ran select Busch Series (now O'Reilly Series) races each year from 1982 to 1994.
His younger son, Dale Jr., saw his own 29-year streak end in 2025, which was his first season without any starts since 1995. He made his national series debut in the 1996 Busch Series season and debuted at the Cup level in 1999. Despite retiring from the Cup Series after the 2017 season, he returned to his JR Motorsports Xfinity Series team for select starts each season from 2018 to 2024.
Dale Jr. currently serves as an analyst in the broadcast booth for both Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports. After announcing for NBC Sports from 2018 to 2023, he took the year off in 2024 and returned in 2025 when the sport's new seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal went into effect, coinciding with Prime's arrival and TNT's return.
This year, it was Jeffrey's streak that came to an end, and with that, so too the family's overall streak of 51 years. Jeffrey is Dale Jr.'s nephew and entered the 2026 season having competed in the sport on some level (across all three series) for 17 straight seasons dating back to 2009.
He plans to return in 2027, but he did not make any starts in 2026. His plans have not yet been announced for next year.
The 51-year streak also featured appearances from Kerry Earnhardt, Dale Sr.'s older son (and Jeffrey's father), and Bobby Dale Earnhardt, Kerry's older son.
Although he only ran full-time twice, Kerry spent time in each series over a 12-year stretch from 1998 to 2009. Bobby Dale ran select Xfinity Series races each season from 2017 to 2019. He did run the majority of the races on this year's ARCA Menards Series schedule, but none in any of the sport's top three series.
What will Jeffrey's 2027 plans end up looking like? Has Dale Jr. really retired, or could he still return for another O'Reilly Series race or two, especially with JR Motorsports set to run five cars full-time next year? And what about Bobby Dale's NASCAR future? After the first season with no Earnhardts since 1974, will any of them be back next year?
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