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Prior to his retirement from full-time racing in NASCAR, a staple of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s uniform was a pair of skeleton racing gloves. During the Aug. 3-5 NASCAR weekend at Watkins Glen International in New York that included races for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series. Thirty-six drivers donned similar skeleton gloves to be auctioned later to raise money for the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Fund at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Nationwide was a primary sponsor on Earnhardt’s No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet in 2017, the final year for Earnhardt as a full-time Cup Series driver.
Earnhardt began his glove program during his driving career, wearing special gloves in select races to eventually autograph and auction for charity. He decided to expand the program to include other drivers, now that he’s no longer in the car on a weekly basis.
“We’ve done a lot with the gloves program through the years at The Dale Jr. Foundation, but this year we wanted to open it up to more people,” Earnhardt said in a press release. “To have 32 [participation grew to 36 by the race weekend] of my former competitors and all four of our JR Motorsports’ drivers sign on to this to help the Nationwide Children’s Hospital continue the life-saving work they do there is impressive, and I can’t thank them all enough. Nationwide Children’s Hospital is a huge part of the work we do at The Foundation.”
Cup Series drivers who wore the gloves at WGI included Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, Alex Bowman, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola, Clint Bowyer, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kyle Larson, A.J. Allmendinger, Daniel Suarez, and Darrell Wallace Jr. After the race each pair of gloves was autographed by the driver who wore them and Earnhardt. Several of the participating drivers tweeted photos of their gloves, along with the link to the online auction site.
The online glove auctions end Aug. 15 and may be found at NASCAR Shop Auctions.
