Dale Earnhardt Jr. just set the record straight on his trademark dispute with two-time NFL MVP Lamar Jackson. On the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Earnhardt explained how the dispute on the No. 8 is now a non-issue.
“We learned that the Budweiser No. 8 trademark is not going to be continued and renewed by Teresa [Earnhardt],” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “We were a bit surprised by that because she kept the one trademark. Haven’t talked to Teresa. Don’t know why that was her decision, but we saw an opportunity to pick up the number and see if we could get the trademark.
“Without the trademark, we can run the number. Anyone can; we can use the number, no problem. Did we have a trademark for the current Junior Motorsports number that we’ve been running since 2019? No. There was no trademark for that number. We filed for the Bud 8 trademark. We have successfully succeeded in that process. We also as a backup plan filed for the trademark on the Junior Motorsports No. 8 that Josh Berry and all those guys have been running for the last couple years. 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.”
Earnhardt goes on to say that once the trademark for the Budweiser No.8 goes through, they would abandon the JR Motorsports No. 8. The NASCAR Hall of Famer then learned on social media that Lamar Jackson was contesting the trademark application.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. indicates the dispute with Lamar Jackson is over
“What happens is our application for our trademark would stop, and the board would check out what Lamar’s concerned about and agree or disagree, and then the process would then pick up and continue,” Earnhardt said. The thought was that Jackson was contesting the Budweiser No. 8. But when Earnhardt did more research, he learned that the Baltimore Ravens quarterback is contesting the JR Motorsports “font”, which Earnhardt is abandoning.
“The next day, actually, we filed the paperwork to abandon the acquisition of that for the JR Motorsports 8,” Earnhardt revealed. “We got what we wanted, and down the road, I was not gonna argue with Lamar over something that I didn’t plan on using. I wasn’t going to spend thousands of dollars with my lawyers to fight for something I didn’t need.”
Earnhardt drove the No. 8 car during the early stages of his NASCAR Cup Series career. Jackson wears the No. 8 jersey for the Ravens and established ERA 8 apparel in 2018.
