Ralph Dale Earnhardt was an American professional stock car driver and racing team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series, most notably driving the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. His aggressive driving style earned him the nicknames "the Intimidator", "the Man in Black" and "Ironhead"; after his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined the Cup Series circuit in 1999, Earnhardt was generally known by the retronyms Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Sr. He is regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history and named as one of the NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers class in 1998.

The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971, when the series began leasing its naming rights to the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, it was referred to as the NASCAR Winston Cup Series (1971–2003). A similar deal was made with Nextel in 2003, and it became the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series (2004–2007). Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, and in 2008 the series was renamed the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (2008–2016). In December 2016, it was announced that Monster Energy would become the new title sponsor, and the series was renamed the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (2017–2019). In 2019, NASCAR rejected Monster's offer to extend the naming rights deal beyond the end of the season. NASCAR subsequently announced its move to a new tiered sponsorship model beginning with the 2020 season similar to other U.S. based professional sports leagues, where it was simply known as the NASCAR Cup Series, with the sponsors of the series being called Premier Partners. The four Premier Partners are Busch Beer, Coca-Cola, GEICO, and Xfinity.