Dale Earnhardt Jr. confirmed another race on his schedule and dropped a cool, new Sun Drop scheme that he will be piloting when he runs the penultimate race on the 2025 CARS Tour calendar at North Carolina’s Tri-County Speedway on Saturday, October 4.

Earnhardt Jr., co-owner of the zMAX CARS Tour, announced early Thursday morning his participation in the event as well as the paint scheme. 

The October 4 race at Tri-County now puts three announced races on Earnhardt’s calendar. The first of which comes in just over a week at Cordele Motor Speedway in Cordele, Georgia on April 12. That race marks the first time the CARS Tour will have run a race in the Peach State.

New look for the No. 8 @SunDrop Chevy.

See ya at Tri-County in October. 😎 pic.twitter.com/Un1rT2ZjBX

— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) April 3, 2025

Earnhardt’s second confirmed race will take place on Friday, August 29 at Florence Motor Speedway in Timmonsville, South Carolina, a track that the NASCAR Hall of Famer is now very familiar with. Between CARS Tour races, multiple South Carolina 400 starts, and multiple Icebreaker starts, Earnhardt Jr. is closing in on double-digit starts there. 

In recent years Earnhardt Jr. has run races at Florence, New River All-American Speedway, Langley Speedway, and North Wilkesboro Speedway before it was repaved. One thing that all those tracks have in common is that they are low grip, heavy tire wear race tracks.

“I don’t enjoy, at my age with what I have going on in my life, to get in a car and have to run as hard as you can and run Q laps every lap you can for the entirety of the race where there’s not a whole lot of fall off,” Earnhardt Jr. told FloRacing last July. “It’s just not that interesting to me. I love watching it. I like watching other people do it. But for me as a driver since I don’t run every week, I’m handicapped a little bit with my experience in these cars. These are the race tracks where I feel I give myself a chance.

“I’m sure I’ll bite the bullet and go do it one day. I’m sure I’ll go try it and see how tough it is at one of these newer surfaces.”

Well now that day is finally here. Tri-County is a recently repaved race track. It does not have the tire fall-off that any of those tracks he’s raced at recently have. It is a hammer-down race track that features multiple grooves and provides thrilling side-by-side racing that can sometimes be three and even four-wide at times. It will definitely be a new challenge for Earnhardt Jr. as he continues his Late Model Stock Car journey.

Now the question is, “Will there be other races?” Earnhardt Jr. is now up to three confirmed CARS Tour races for 2025. He also teased a potential start at South Carolina’s Anderson Motor Speedway on August 16. When he was asked on social media about Anderson, he replied, “It’s on my short list.”

One race that has been ruled out for Earnhardt Jr.’s racing schedule is the May 16 race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. However, fans can still see and hear Earnhardt Jr. during the event. That race will now be broadcast live on FloRacing and on FOX Sports 1 and will feature Earnhardt Jr. as well as CARS Tour co-owner Kevin Harvick in the broadcast booth alongside CARS Tour announcer, Eric Brennan. The race will mark the first time the CARS Tour will be broadcast on national television.

If race fans cannot make it to the track to watch Dale Earnhardt Jr. race in person at any of these events, fans can tune in live on FloRacing. Every CARS Tour race will be broadcast live on FloRacing as part of a FloRacing subscription. Fans can subscribe to FloRacing by clicking here.