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Childress, who owns the rights to the number, has said the time was right to get the No. 3 back on the track and has said over the years that only a member of his family or the Earnhardt family would race it.
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“I have mixed feelings because I was told that I would never see a number three on the racetrack after Dale died,” Martha Earnhardt told Fox Sports 1’s NASCAR RaceHub. “I can understand it to a point. “I know it was Richard’s number when he drove and this is his grandson, and I understand that. As long as they don’t make it look like (Dale’s car). If they painted it a different color … I can sort of deal with it, but I don’t want to see the black number three just like Dale’s. But that’s not my decision.”