Earnhardt’s No. 3 Returns for a Tribute

For a day, or at least a lap or two, Dale Earnhardt’s old No. 3 Chevrolet is coming back to a Winston Cup track.

It will be part of NASCAR’s tribute to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which helped finance and spearhead stock car racing’s growth as it became one of the most popular sports in the United States with its Winston Cup promotions. A series of “victory laps” by champions in specially painted cars will be part of pre-race ceremonies at the final 13 races of 2003, RJR’s last season after 33 years.

Nextel, a wireless communications company, will replace Winston as the title sponsor next year.

The most dramatic of the tributes will be held Oct. 11 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., where Richard Childress will drive one of his team’s Monte Carlos in honor of Earnhardt, who won six of his seven Winston Cup championships in Childress’ black No. 3 Chevrolets. A car with that number has not appeared in a Winston Cup race since Earnhardt was killed on the final turn of the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

Childress owns rights to No. 3, and since NASCAR waived its rule that for a number to be held by an owner it must be used in at least five races a year, it has not been issued since Earnhardt’s death. When Childress replaced Earnhardt with Kevin Harvick, he painted the car white -- it has since evolved into black and white -- and took No. 29.

The car Childress will drive is not one Earnhardt drove. It has been built especially for the ceremonial laps. It will carry Earnhardt’s traditional black coloring on its sides, but with silver the predominant color on the hood, roof and rear deck lid. The hood will carry the “victory lap” logo, honoring Winston.

“It’ll be emotional,” said Childress, a driver until he hired Earnhardt and retired. “This will be a very special occasion. It took something like this for Teresa [Earnhardt’s widow] and me to get No. 3 back on the track. We talked with everybody at [Dale Earnhardt Inc.] and everybody felt really good about doing [something] for everything RJR had done for the sport and for Dale and myself.”

Earnhardt collected checks for $4.4 million from RJR in championship bonus money alone. At Lowe’s, where he will be honored, he won five Winston Cup races and three Winston all-star races.

Thirty Chevrolets that Earnhardt drove, 25 of them in the traditional black and the others special-theme cars, are in the Richard Childress Racing Museum in Welcome, N.C.

In the pre-race ceremonial laps at Lowe’s, the No. 3 car will run alongside the No. 24 Chevrolet of Jeff Gordon, a four-time champion who will be representing active Winston Cup champions.

“It is appropriate Richard will pay tribute to Winston on behalf of Dale and himself here,” said H. A. “Humpy” Wheeler, Lowe’s Speedway president. “We’re Dale and Richard’s hometown track, the closest track to R.J. Reynolds headquarters, and we’ll never forget the many highlights Dale provided here in the Winston, Coca-Cola 600 and UAW-GUM Qualify 500.”

The series of tributes will start with next week’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol, Tenn. Rusty Wallace, the 1989 champion, and a car representative of the ones driven by the late Alan Kulwicki, the 1992 champion, will take ceremonial laps.

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Southland Scene

With the 360 Sprint Car Nationals only a week away, West Coast drivers will get in their final tuneups Saturday night with a 360 main event at Perris Auto Speedway. The Nationals are scheduled Aug. 22-23 at Perris.

Mike Kirby, the Torrance veteran who has won the last two sprint car races he has entered, will be in Buzz Shoemaker’s fluorescent orange No. 0. On July 12, Kirby subbed for vacationing Richie Gaunt and led all 30 laps, winning his first Sprint Car Racing Assn. race of the year at Perris. Two weeks ago, Kirby won in Shoemaker’s VRA 360 sprint car.

The 360s look like the SCRA cars, but are not quite as powerful. The SCRA sprinters have 410cc engines, compared with 360, and aluminum engine blocks rather than iron blocks.

California Lightning sprint cars will also race Saturday.

If demolition derby driver Julianna Paez’s Cadillac looks spruced up for Saturday night’s Pick Your Part crash-fest at Irwindale Speedway, credit goes to a Fontana Girl Scout troop. Assistant scout leader and racing fan Carl Webbea asked Paez what the girls could do to help her and she said they could help finish painting the car.

They are planning to do that Saturday morning at Paez’s home in Duarte, just in time for the car to get smashed that evening.

“We’re looking forward to having the girls over,” Paez said. “I’m not really sure that they’ve ever met a lady demolition driver before.”

Todd Burns and Lee Ladd, big winners in the NASCAR Weekly Racing Series at Irwindale, will be out to pad their season leads Saturday night on the half-mile paved oval. Burns has won eight of 12 late model races and Ladd has won seven of 11 super stock main events.

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Last Laps

Sunoco will replace Union 76 as the official fuel of NASCAR’s top three series, Associated Press reported. The 76 brand had been the official fuel of NASCAR for more than 40 years. An official announcement is scheduled today.

The 26th Belleville Nationals, one of midget car racing’s most prestigious events, was won by Josh Wise of Riverside on Saturday night at Belleville, Kan. Wise led all 40 laps, beating out J.J. Yeley, Jay Drake, Alex Harris and Brian Gerster. The victory was worth $12,500.

Yeley’s win the previous Thursday night, also at Belleville, gave the Phoenix driver a U.S. Auto Club record 20 feature triumphs this year, beating the old record of 19 set by A.J. Foyt in 1961 and equaled by Sleepy Tripp in 1988 and Drake in 2000. Yeley has posted his 20 victories -- 11 in sprint cars, six in midgets and three in Silver Crown dirt-track style cars -- in only 50 starts.

The opening race Tuesday of the SCRA-USAC Non-Winged Challenge sprint car series at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa, was marred by an accident that took the life of Australian driver Keith Hutton, 53, during the C-Main. Boston Reid, 20, won the main event for his first career victory.

Patrick Long, competing as a guest driver, won two rounds of the British Porsche Carrera Cup series last week at Snetterton, England. Long, of Agoura Hills, won both races from the pole.

The APBA Gold Cup, premier race of the Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane Series, has been rescheduled for Aug. 24 on the Detroit River. It had been scheduled for June, but problems with finances almost caused it to be canceled, or moved to another site.

Tom D’Eath, a three-time winner of the Gold Cup, stepped in to help the Detroit River Regatta Assn. produce the race, which dates to 1904. Dave Villwock, in Miss Budweiser, is defending champion.

A 1929 Ford coupe, one of the earliest hot rods that has been displayed at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum in Pomona, has been selected to be part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. The flat-head street roadster, owned by John Athan of Culver City, was used in the 1957 film “Loving You,” starring Elvis Presley.