The 2025 NASCAR season was the first since 1995 in which Dale Earnhardt Jr. did not compete in a single national series race. Following his retirement from full-time Cup Series competition in 2017, he still returned and ran at least one race in the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series (formerly Xfinity Series) each year from 2018 to 2024 for his JR Motorsports team.
Dale Jr. made his NASCAR debut in the 1996 Busch (O'Reilly) Series season, and he made his Cup Series debut in 1999. He competed in the Cup Series each year from 1999 to 2017, and the only year from 1996 to 2024 during which he didn't run a single O'Reilly Series race was 2000.
But it was his nephew, Jeffrey Earnhardt, who kept an Earnhardt streak alive in 2025 that dates back to 1975. Not since 1974 has there been a NASCAR season without an Earnhardt in a national series, as Jeffrey ran three races in the O'Reilly Series with Sam Hunt Racing.
51-year Earnhardt streak in jeopardy?
Jeffrey has competed in NASCAR on some level since 2009, but he does not have any starts lined up for the 2026 season.
Although brother Bobby Dale Earnhardt is set to run the full ARCA Menards Series schedule in 2026 with Rise Racing with Earnhardt-Shearer Racing, he hasn't run a national series race since the 2019 O'Reilly Series campaign, and he currently has no plans to change that this year.
He did finish in a career-high ninth place in the ARCA season opener at Daytona International Speedway this past weekend.
The streak began in 1975, when Dale Earnhardt made his Cup Series debut. The eventual seven-time champion competed in the series each year until he was killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. He also made select O'Reilly Series starts each year from 1982 to 1994.
Although that's when the streak began, Dale Sr. was not the first Earnhardt to compete in NASCAR. Ralph Earnhardt, Dale's father, competed in the Cup Series in 1956 and 1957, and then from 1961 to 1964.