How Dale Earnhardt’s iconic ‘Taz’ Looney Tunes paint scheme returned to the track

In the zMAX CARS Tour, the Taz car made its return to the track 25 years after its NASCAR debut in the Daytona 500.

HICKORY, N.C. — He didn’t win in it, but every NASCAR fan remembers Dale Earnhardt’s day-glo red paint scheme that featured Taz from the Looney Tunes.

For the 2000 Daytona 500, Earnhardt’s team ditched his traditional black Goodwrench Plus scheme, painted the car red and slapped Taz on the hood of his Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The popular and erratic cartoon character was part of a GM Goodwrench ad campaign at the time. A trailblazer in NASCAR merchandising, there were soon Earnhardt hats and diecasts featuring Taz that his loyal fans flocked to.

The seven-time Winston Cup champion drove well in the Taz car at Daytona that day, running in fourth with about 30 laps to go and even traded some red paint with his son in the rookie’s Budweiser No. 8. But an incident with Jimmy Spencer with about 10 laps to go pushed the Intimidator to the middle of the pack and Earnhardt wound up finishing 21st. The Taz body was cut off Chassis No. 58 and the toy company Hasbro acquired it, chopped it up into little pieces, and included those parts in the Winner’s Circle diecasts that were sold.

Earnhardt died a year later, tragically at the 2001 Daytona 500 in a wreck that changed the sport, and the Taz car was never seen again.

Until this past weekend.

The zMAX CARS Tour — a late model stock car touring series that is co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr. — held one of its biggest races of the season this past weekend at the historic Hickory Motor Speedway in western North Carolina. The Throwback Classic, billed as the “biggest night in pavement late model racing history,” boasted the richest purse ever for the CARS Tour: $50,000 for the winner of the late model stock race and $30,000 for the winner of the pro late model race.

And the extra layer of coolness and nostalgia to the event is that drivers were encouraged to honor past legends of the sport and memorable cars with throwback paint schemes. For example, Conner Jones drove a white No. 48 car with a Lowe’s ad on it as a nod to Jimmie Johnson. Blayne Harrison and Dawson Sutton both had Darrell Waltrip schemes on their cars. There were also tributes to Jeff Gordon, Alan Kulwicki, Rusty Wallace, David Pearson and Steve Park, among others.

Doug Barnes Jr. always knew that if he got the opportunity to compete in this race, there was only one scheme he wanted his car to have: the Taz.

“I’ve watched this race and seen everyone else’s throwbacks, and I said, ‘If I’m going to do one, I’m going to do the Tasmanian Devil car.’ It’s been on the top of my list. Then we went to (the Dominion Raceway in Virginia) a couple weeks ago and changed the car to red, so then it was cheaper to do it that way,” Barnes told SB Nation. “That’s just been my favorite car ever.”

So, there the Taz was this weekend at Hickory Motor Speedway. The race got pushed to Sunday because of rain, but Barnes ran well in it, finishing fifth in the late model stock competition.

A 27-year-old from Harford County, Maryland that drives for Lee Pulliam Performance, Barnes doesn’t have a lot of memories of watching Earnhardt race when he was a kid, but became a fan through the merchandise.

“I don’t know if it was the diecasts that turned me on to them, but I could tell you all of Dale Earnhardt’s paint schemes,” Barnes said. “I had my favorites, and always been a fan of Junior too.”

If there were any loopholes to go through to run in a racecar with a Earnhardt paint scheme, Barnes wasn’t aware of them.

“Sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” Barnes said with a laugh. “I did text it to Dale Jr., and he said it looked cool. When I texted it to him, it was already halfway wrapped, so, it was kind of at the point that there was no going back. I had seen people do Earnhardt schemes in the past, so I didn’t figure I was going to be breaking any laws. It turned out great. Everybody liked it, Junior liked it — I hope he thought it was cool, throwing it back to his dad. I think a lot about them. Happy we could pull it together.”

For Barnes, the fifth-place finish was his third top-five of the year in the CARS Tour and seventh in the top-10 out of 10 races.

This time, the Taz car won’t be chopped up into little collectibles for a toy company. However, Barnes said he plans to cut the door off and have his team and crew sign it before hanging it in his garage in Florida.