NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. clears up trademark dispute with Ravens’ Lamar Jackson over stylized No. 8

After a brief legal tiff between NFL MVP quarterback Lamar Jackson and NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. over a stylized No. 8 trademark garnered headlines a week ago, Earnhardt cleared the air and put the matter to rest Tuesday during an episode of “Dirty Air” on his podcast platform. The public addressing of the matter came several days after Earnhardt and JR Motorsports announced they would no longer be using the style of No. 8 that was the subject of a notice of opposition Jackson had filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

In explaining the situation, Earnhardt began by recounting how he and JR Motorsports learned Teresa Earnhardt, his stepmother and the widow of Dale Earnhardt, was allowing the trademark for the Dale Earnhardt Inc. stylized No. 8, which he had used at the start of his NASCAR Cup Series career from 2000 to 2007 and adorned his Budweiser Chevrolet, to expire. Anticipating potential difficulties over acquiring the trademark for the DEI/Budweiser style No. 8, Earnhardt also filed to trademark the JR Motorsports stylized No. 8, which had been used on the team’s Xfinity Series and late model stock cars from 2019 to 2024, as a backup plan.

“That was sort of a Plan B, because we assumed that this Bud 8 thing might get murky or might not even happen at all, and so we filed for the other number,” Earnhardt said. “When we’re sort of right on top of the finishing line in closing out the trademark rights for the Bud 8, and in doing that, at some point we would probably abandon the application for the JR Motorsports 8. We just hadn’t done that.

“Well, I learned on social media about the same time that everybody else did that Lamar was contesting our trademark application. He wasn’t suing me, he’s just contesting it. And there’s a part of the trademark process where if you believe somebody’s applying for a trademark and it’s gonna hurt your brand, you can oppose it and say, ‘Hey, I need y’all to look at this first.’ And what happens is our application for our trademark would stop, and the board would check out what Lamar is concerned about and agree or disagree, and then the process would then pick up and continue.”

Though he initially thought Jackson was challenging the trademark for the DEI/Bud No. 8, Earnhardt and his representatives later realized he was actually challenging the trademark for the JR Motorsports No. 8, which they did not plan to use again after acquiring the trademark for the DEI/Bud No. 8. As such, the application for the JR Motorsports No. 8 was abandoned, resolving the matter after Jackson and his representatives argued the trademark conflicted with the Baltimore Ravens quarterback’s “Era 8” brand.

“We got what we wanted and we’re down the road,” Earnhardt said. “I was not gonna argue with Lamar over something that I didn’t plan on using, and I wasn’t gonna spend thousands of dollars with my lawyers to fight for something that I didn’t need.”

Having regained the rights to use the stylized No. 8 from the beginning of his career, the DEI No. 8 is now being used by Earnhardt and JR Motorsports for both their Xfinity Series team and late model stock program that competes in CARS Tour and elsewhere. Sammy Smith drives the No. 8 Chevrolet in the Xfinity Series, and the number is now driven by Earnhardt himself when he makes sporadic late model stock appearances, including with a throwback Budweiser paint scheme.