Earnhardt proud of new look

The 32-year-old, who is very knowledgeable about NASCAR's history, said he selected the No. 88 because of its heritage, something that some of the other options he considered clearly lacked.

"I like the fact that the number has some history," Earnhardt said. "That makes me feel very proud to have it. I'm very excited about it. That was what some of the other options sort of lacked was that they didn't have any true history or any true greatness behind them. No substance.

"This was really sort of a gold mine in effect for me because of the heritage that it had. I was really proud of that and very happy that we were able to be part of that and to make that our own."

However, when Earnhardt Jr drives with the No. 88 at the 2008 Daytona 500, it will not be the first time he uses that number. It has also been used in his own JR Motorsports Busch Series team, and Earnhardt himself drove it this year at Daytona in July to a 14th place finish.

"I was really trying to do the best I could to do good by my fans because that was very important to them," Earnhardt added. "And that was one of the more popular questions, "Would it have an '8' in it? What's the number? What's the number?" So I think that they can be twice as happy about the situation."

Earnhardt also spoke about the new paint scheme that he helped to create himself, trying to resemble the design that Darrell Waltrip raced to two of his three Nextel Cup titles in the 80s.

"When we first started working with a scheme, me and a friend produced something really close to what Darrell (Waltrip) had in the 80s because I thought that was a great-looking race car," he said.

"Brian Vickers ran it in the Busch Series last year. It's still a great-looking race car. We massaged that quite a bit to come up with the scheme. I really am happy with it."

Earnhardt Jr will alternate between two different paint schemes next year. One will be the green and white AMP Power Mountain Dew car with the red No. 88 on the side, and the other will be the blue and white National Guard car.