Golf has spent decades trying to make its stars look cool, but John Daly never got the memo, and he is better off for it. This week, his face is turning up on the one place nobody expected: the side of a race car, on NASCAR’s biggest weekend of the year.
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Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter shared the news on X. Daly’s likeness will appear at the Miami finale through Spire Motorsports and the Modo gaming app, and Carpenter joked he first mistook the artwork for Jerry Garcia.
Daly leaned into the humor in the team’s release: “Usually, it’s my pants getting all the attention,” he said, treating the cars as the new scene-stealers.
Nick Sanchez will debut the scheme on Spire’s No. 77 Chevrolet Silverado in the Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday, November 6. Daniel Suárez will carry it on his No. 7 Cup car in the championship race on Sunday, November 8. The paint job is not subtle. It uses hot pink, electric cyan, violet, and orange, with a racing stripe made of small Daly portraits.
John Daly won’t just be a design. He has been a Modo brand ambassador since 2024, and he will attend Sunday’s race and join Suárez’s team on the starting grid before the green flag.
The Cup car is not in the title fight. Suárez was eliminated from championship contention earlier this fall. That makes the Daly livery one of the more visible stories on a car that otherwise would not be a main character.
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Modo’s pitch is simple. According to ARB Interactive’s chief marketing officer, NASCAR fans deserve more than a logo on a quarter panel, and the company took the boldest personality in golf and made the loudest car on the grid. Spire’s president said the schemes are designed to be spotted from the top row of the grandstands.
This could signal how brands now value golf’s characters. The move fits a broader trend of marketers choosing personality over results, and John Daly may be the clearest example. He has no wins or top-10 finishes in 2026 on PGA Tour Champions. Brands aren’t paying for his scorecard.
The Face on the Hood
The man on the car is a reminder of why the pitch works. John Daly is a two-time major champion known for booming drives, a mullet, and an unfiltered personality, and he was named the 2026 Ambassador of Golf. His first major was a story that sounds made up. He went from ninth alternate to PGA Champion in a matter of days.
He is now 60 and plays the senior circuit, often by cart. But his appeal has never depended on scoring. People watch him because they feel they know him.
Daly is not the first golfer to be connected to NASCAR. In 2017, Natural Light and Barstool Sports partnered with NASCAR driver Chris Buescher, whose No. 37 car featured their logos at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Daly has also attracted sponsors for many years. In 2002, companies such as 84 Lumber, SoBe, Pinnacle and Hippo Golf had their logos on his golf shirt. Both examples show how brands use popular golfers to reach people beyond the golf course.
The championship races will have their own drama, but Daly gives Homestead a different kind of story. Fans will search for the paint scheme on Friday’s truck, and again on Sunday, when Daly joins the grid.
The comparison with golf is hard to avoid. A sport known for quiet manners has an icon who has always been the opposite, and NASCAR is a sport built on loud personalities. On a weekend meant to crown champions, the most photographed machine at Homestead may not belong to one. That is the Daly effect: even when he isn’t contending, people still look.