NASCAR legend makes pit stop at this Beaufort dive bar. ‘My phone started blowing up’
A NASCAR legend and his wife showed up at a well-known Beaufort watering hole Monday to the shock of its regular customers who could barely believe their eyes.
Could that be Dale Earnhardt Jr.? At The Fillin’ Station on Lady’s Island?
It was. His wife, Amy, was with him.
“Our patrons, our locals, recognized him,” Heidi Love, one of the bar’s owners, told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet Tuesday. “I was at home. My phone started blowing up.”
The 51-year-old Earnhardt is one of the sport’s most popular former drivers and is still a top personality as a NASCAR analyst and broadcaster.
The retired Hall of Fame American professional stock car racing driver won the prestigious Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014 and won 15 straight NASCAR Most Popular Driver awards from 2003 to 2017.
He’s the son of 7-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt, who died in a Daytona 500 crash in 2001.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. visits The Fillin’ Station
The Fillin’ Station, a waterfront bar and grill on Battery Creek on Lady’s Island just over the Woods Memorial Bridge from downtown Beaufort, is well known in its own right.
The quintessential Lowcountry bar brags that it’s the “king of dive bars.”
The Earnhardts stopped in just before 4 p.m. and stayed until about 7:30 p.m. The visit was unannounced. Earnhardt was quickly recognized.
“It was just our normal crowd,” Love said.
During his pit stop at The Fillin’ Station, Earnhardt Jr. took time to pose for photos with employees and patrons.
Randy Brenner, another owner, is a huge NASCAR fan and rushed to the bar to hang out with the Earnhardts for a while, Love said.
The couple posed with bartender Amber Parker, whose grandfather owned The Fillin’ Station when it was still a gas station many years ago, Love said.
They also signed a dollar bill that read, “Bless your Hardt.” The bill was quickly tacked onto a wall.
Love doesn’t know why the Earnhardts were in the area. The bar owners received permission to post something about the visit on Facebook and did so after they left.
“Welp,” the bar said in a post. “You never know who’s gonna pull into the Fillin’ Station. It was great having Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Amy stop by the Station!”
Other NASCAR drivers, celebrities in the Lowcountry
Other NASCAR drivers have stopped in the Lowcountry recently.
In a show of support for U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric visited the Port Royal base and participated in drills recruits go through during basic training.
In 2022, former CBS late-night TV talk show host Stephen Colbert made a stop at Plums, a popular Beaufort restaurant on Bay Street.
This story was originally published July 14, 2026 at 10:46 AM.