Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a wholesome reaction when it was revealed that NASCAR Cup Series star Carson Hocevar would be paying tribute to his late father at Darlington Raceway this weekend.

Darlington has played host to NASCAR's annual throwback weekend for some time now, but this year, NASCAR is no longer asking teams to run throwback schemes on their cars.

Some teams are still electing to do so, though. RFK Racing recently revealed that all three of its Cup Series cars would run schemes to honor the late Greg Biffle, for example, and in recent days, Spire Motorsports unveiled a new look for Hocevar inspired by Dale Earnhardt's 1981 paint scheme.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s favorite Dale Sr. paint scheme

Naturally, the topic came up on this week's episode of the Dale Jr. Download podcast, in which Earnhardt Jr. was asked if he had seen the car Hocevar would be running this weekend.

“This is my favorite Dale Earnhardt paint scheme,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It’s the 1981 car, and it gets no love because ’81 was a lost year.

"Dad started the season driving for Rod Osterlund, Rod would sell the team to J.D. Stacy, which dad would race for four races before leaving to go to RCR, and then at the end of the year, leaving there to go to Bud Moore for two years.

"So the '81 year is forgotten, lost, unappreciated. But the car is underrated. That yellow nose with those old vintage stripes is just, in my opinion, straight badass vintage."

Earnhardt Jr.: I was so p****d off at paint scheme blunder

Earnhardt Jr. continued, reminiscing about the time he ran the scheme at Darlington on Martin Truex's car back in the Chance 2 Motorsports days in what was then the Busch Series.

“We ran it on Martin Truex’s car at Darlington when he won the championship in the Chance 2 deal,” Earnhardt said. “I was so p****d off.

"I got Martin Truex Jr. in the car that's my favorite scheme of my dad’s, right, we’re going to Darlington with a chance to clinch. I’m on the pit box...I didn’t see the car before they put it on the grid. He pulls out on the racetrack to do his pace laps, and they’ve got blue tape on the valance. It’s a yellow nose.

“I don’t know why that’s hilarious to me today that I was so annoyed by that, but I was madder than hell that Bono Manion had put blue tape on the valance of the yellow-nosed race car. I wanted yellow, right, and I was like, 'S**t!'"

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Hocevar on running Dale Sr. tribute scheme

On honoring Earnhardt Sr. at Darlington, Hocevar said the following in a team statement this week: “Chili’s always knocks it out of the park with their suit and car designs, and the Marg Machine is no different.

“Everyone at Chili’s and Spire put in a lot of work to get the car as close to the original as possible, and they did a great job. We’ve had bold suits in the past, but this might be one of my favorites.

"It’s truly a privilege to honor Dale’s legacy on Alumni Weekend down in Darlington, and hopefully we can give him and all the folks from Chili’s a great run on Sunday.”

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