Expect to see a lot of pink butterflies at the NASCAR races this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The iconic short track announced that it aims to honor the late country music icon Dolly Parton this weekend with a series of tributes. One of the ways they’re going to pay homage to Parton is by providing each NASCAR team and driver with race-ready pink butterfly decals for placement on their machines. The decal was created with approval from the Dollywood foundation.
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Known for hit songs like “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You” and “9 to 5,” Parton died at the age of 80 on Aug. 25.
She was born and raised about 100 miles southwest of Bristol in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. In a statement issued not long after her death, Jerry Caldwell, the president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway, called her an “extraordinary Tennessean.”
“Dolly’s impact reaches far beyond East Tennessee, but she’ll always have a special place here at home,” Caldwell said. “We wanted to create a meaningful way for our fans and race teams to join us in honoring her during one of Bristol’s biggest weekends. We’re grateful to the Dollywood Foundation for helping us bring this tribute to life.”
Other nods to Parton planned for the race weekend include prominent signage on the track walls and throughout the Bristol property, plus a 15-foot-wide and 7-foot-tall Dolly Parton tribute banner in the fan zone where folks can write messages and add their signatures. Bristol Motor Speedway also says that Parton’s music will be played all weekend long.
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Bristol was the place where, in 2019, Tyler Reddick drove a car sponsored by Parton in the second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for Richard Childress Racing. His No. 2 Chevrolet stood out from the rest of the field as it was splashed with a pink-and-white paint scheme and featured Parton’s face on the hood.
Parton wasn’t able to attend that race, where Reddick finished second, but sent him a video to amp him up.
“It was really cool what we did at Bristol. The fact that she was wanting and willing to do something like that to get us ready for the race speaks to the type of person that I think a lot of people in the world knew her as,” Reddick said a few days after her death during a press conference at Daytona. “She made a huge impact on a lot of individuals and I really enjoyed being able to run the car for her. We had a lot of fun that weekend.”
That Bristol race was not, however, the last time Parton’s face would appear on a ride in NASCAR. Through a sponsorship deal between Trackhouse Racing and the Academy of Country Music Awards, Parton appeared on the rear quarter panel of Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Chevrolet at the Pennzoil 400 on March 6, 2022 at Las Vegas. He finished third.
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Beginning in May of this year, Dollywood Parks & Resorts began also sponsoring the No. 85 Ford for 17-year-old Quinn Davis in the ARCA Menards Series.
Bristol’s annual night race is already a staple on the NASCAR calendar, but in addition to the Cup Series race being full of tributes to Parton, it will also be a star-studded event. Academy Award-winning actor Brad Pitt will be the grand marshal for the 500-lap Bass Pro Shops Night Race, Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will be the honorary pace car driver and WWE legend Ric Flair is set to appear.
The race will also feature a tribute to the late Kyle Busch, who shockingly died on May 21 at the age of 41 due to complications from sepsis caused by presumed bacterial pneumonia. In Saturday’s Cup Series race, Ty Gibbs will drive the No. 54 Toyota with an M&M’s paint scheme akin to the one that Busch won a lot of races with during his tenure at Joe Gibbs Racing.
Busch often dominated at Bristol. He is the only driver in the history of NASCAR to win in the Truck Series, O’Reilly Series and Cup Series in the same weekend – and he did it twice, both at Bristol, completing sweeps in 2010 and 2017. Additionally, Busch’s 22 combined wins at Bristol are the most victories at any one track that a driver has ever achieved in NASCAR history.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dolly Parton tribute planned for NASCAR race at Bristol
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