Dale Earnhardt Jr. to race No. 3 in Daytona's Nationwide Series event?

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Dale Earnhardt Jr. all but confirmed Friday he will drive a No. 3 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona in July. Fox analyst Darrell Waltrip had said via Twitter that Earnhardt Jr. would use his father's famous number.

JR Motorsports has announced a press conference Thursday involving Earnhardt Jr., his father's car owner, Richard Childress, and his father's widow, Teresa Earnhardt.

"DW sort of blew the lid off of it - on Twitter nonetheless," Earnhardt Jr. said Friday at Talladege Superspeedway. "So that kind of ruined our announcement, but we will put together and we will have an announcement real soon and explain what that whole program is all about and how it came about and what is going down with it."

Earnhardt Jr. didn't seem too pleased Waltrip released the information.

"And it’s unfortunate that DW uncovered that," Earnhardt Jr. said, "and the way it went down because we didn’t want to have to announce it like this. So we will do it when we had it originally planned, and that is all I can tell you about it."

Earnhardt Jr. won the February 2002 race in what was known as the Busch Series the No. 3 owned by Childress. He won the first 13 races of his Busch Series career in a No. 3 owned by his father.

The July 2 race at Daytona will be the first with the new Nationwide Series car.