When the NASCAR Cup Series heads to Martinsville for the final race before the cutoff, driver Josh Bilicki will get behind the wheel of a faux-police cruiser. The 25-year-old just unveiled a special paint scheme to honor fallen police officers. The design features more than 230 stars in remembrance of the police officers that died in 2020.
Bilicki posted a series of photos on Instagram and showed off the new design. The No. 7 Chevrolet Camaro has a throwback white and black scheme and includes painted-on emergency lights. There is a police badge on the doors and the text “protect and serve” on the fenders. Bilicki and his sponsor, Insurance King, have been working with the organization Wounded Blue, which provides assistance to police officers who have been wounded or injured on the job.
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“We came up with the idea to make the car look like a cop car because NASCAR began with bootleggers outrunning the police,” Insurance King president Dan Block said. “However, when we partnered with The Wounded Blue, we ended up going one step further with this paint scheme and are dedicating this design to each police officer that lost their life in 2020.”
Bilicki has previously driven a car with a Wounded Blue paint scheme. He headed to Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 in mid-October, getting behind the wheel of an all-black Camaro. The car featured a police badge, a Thin Blue Line American flag and the text: “Never Forgotten. Never Alone.”
Bilicki is not the only driver to take part in a race while running a paint scheme in honor of fallen police officers. Kyle Weatherman, who competes in the Xfinity Series, drives the No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro and regularly features a “Back the Blue” paint scheme. Although he does make changes throughout the year to list the names of different officers that have died in the line of duty.
Weatherman most recently partnered with the Fort Worth Police Officer Association for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. Weatherman said that he was racing “in honor of the 62 Fort Worth police officers who have given their lives in the line of duty.” Weatherman also drove a throwback white and black scheme that highlighted K9 units during a race at Darlington Raceway in September.
