Sunday, February 22, 2015

2015 Daytona 500 brings what may be the last current NASCAR packs I ever open.

The 2015 Daytona 500 was today, the true start of the NASCAR season. It was a solid race. Not as much passing as I would have hoped for, but the last 30 laps or so were very good. I won't spoil the winner but he has appeared on this blog before. It is a driver I root for so I can't say I am unhappy with the race.

With Press Pass out of  business and no new company stepping up to the plate, the 2015 Press Pass set may be the last current NASCAR product ever released. I had two blasters from my local Target saved specifically for today, the day of the 500, and opened them shortly after the race began.

I have cleaned out my local Target, and by this point I am assuming they are going to be sold out from Wal-Mart as well, but I was not actually able to get there. If they are...then these were the last current packs of Press Pass/NASCAR I will ever open.
That's not a good feeling, but I did get some nice cards.

Each Blaster promises one autograph or relic, and I got one of each.
I did not have an autograph of Gilliland or a relic of Almirola before, so I was happy with that. This is actually the first base Signings autograph I've pulled from the 2015 set, but the 4th overall. Nice amount of lettering on the tire piece...there's almost no unpainted rubber at all! I really like the Burning Rubber concept (race win tires) and I am always happy to see a first time winner, so I really like this card a lot.

Each blaster also gives you a parallel. Target's were red. Wal-Mart's were purple. I did not get a single one of them.
Unfortunately they were both from one of the pointless subsets Press Pass loved. They couldn't be bothered to include the cars, but we got everything from eyeball closeups to driver's "star signs" over the years...Still, neither were duplicates, so there's that, at least.

I went in 12 cards short of the base retail set, and I got 8 of them. Unfortunately 6 of the 8 came out of the pack damaged, with the Jennifer Jo Cobb card with the biggest hit. Some of the cards that got water damage earlier this month are in better shape then the brand new just out of the pack cards from Press Pass. I wish I could say I was surprised by this.
 
This is a really terrible, craptastic picture. Sorry about that. I can do better than this, I really should have taken a better one, but I'll have all of them scanned hopefully later today, so I didn't want to go through a lot of effort on this.
I'll edit in the scans when I get them made, if I remember.
The driver on the top left who is too blurry to make out is Dylan Kwasniewski.

Here is the scans...I was not able to make them yesterday, but I got them done now.


I ended up with another stack of duplicates- including at least one more copy of the #11 Austin Dillon card. Of the 6 blasters I opened, I got that card in 4 of them. Plus I had a few copies beforehand. Yet I still ended up 4 cards short. Also not much of a surprise.

If I can't find any more blasters or loose packs at Wal-Mart, I will try and trade for the last four cards I need, or if not, I'll just nab them off Ebay I suspect. Most likely I would be able to trade for them, but I want to at least try and get them myself first.

As always, thanks for reading!

4 comments:

  1. I was happy with the race and the winner, glad it wasn't anyone else that finished in the top five. The two I was rooting for finished 12th and 13th, so I can't complain at all.

    Those are nice cards, it would be nice to find some NASCAR cards around here, but I've never been a fan of their subsets. I hope someone picks up the licensing for them as it would be a shame for no more cards being produced.

    I have a question, how accurate are the sponsors on the cards? I ask because I know there were a lot of changes since last year (I didn't know Edwards switched numbers and has a new sponsor), so I was curious. Also do you know if McDowell still has K-Love as a sponsor? It seemed like an interesting sponsorship to me, but I do root for him on occasion.

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    1. Well, with Press Pass, even though these are marketed as 2015, they were produced around September of 2014 so all the sponsors and images are a year late. It's been that way since around 2003. And of course, the censor Budweiser and for some reason they censored 5 Hour Energy this year. McDowell still has K-Love but they were not on the car at Daytona- they actually got a paying sponsor. K-Love is something he feels strongly about and I am not actually sure if they pay to be on the car.

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  2. I meant to watch the race, but I forgot about it until it was nearly over and didn't want to deal with the uproar of my children if I turned off their movie to watch racing. I'm still pretty bummed about Press Pass going away, as I liked getting my NASCAR fix from them and they put out some pretty interesting cards over the last few years. I hope that someone picks up the NASCAR cardboard license soon. I need to pick up a 2015 set sometime, probably soon. There are just so many cards competing for my attention. Each month the want list gets bigger.

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    1. I do too! There are rumors that companies are interested- both Upper Deck and Panini have come up- but nothing yet. Your 2015 options are pretty limited, as only one set was released...the retail cards are the ones I show here, all the base cards in hobby are foil. I actually like retail better myself.

      And I know exactly what you mean about too many cards to choose from. I'm a completionist, after all! :)

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