I really don't think they thought this through

 Ultra was always my favorite brand, and the 2003-04 NBA set holds a special place in my memory. 

The base card is fine, of course. 

The parallels have a standard format, with the top left corner die cut with Gold Medallion foil lettering there. 

Normally, it's all good...

Oh....oh no. 

I don't think Fleer thought to take that into account when choosing photos, which leads us to the hilarious card. 

More than 30 years in, I finally know...

 how many cards I have of each NASCAR team! You'd think, being my favorite sport, I would know everything about my collections by this point, but that wasn't the case. When I decided to expand my Excel chart to include teams, most of the NASCAR cards had already been entered, while I was able to add that info to the NBA and NHL listings as I typed them in, and what was already done I knocked out in just a couple of hours.

Since then, I have been slowly working on filling in the missing NASCAR team info, which I think I started to do back in 2017. I don't know when exactly, but that was the "break even" point where I had the teams all entered properly. 

However, NASCAR teams are not as cut and dried as stick and ball sports teams. ANYONE can start a NASCAR team and some of them can be pretty obscure. I had to do some deep diving into the sport's roots to figure out some of them, but I am not complaining- I LOVE this stuff more than anything else. Whereas for example the NBA has 31 teams in the largest season, NASCAR has roughly 125 across all divisions, although not all getting cards. and the team names can change and change drastically from year to year. 

For example, this is one team's history:

• AK Racing 1986-1993, when Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash
• Geoff Bodine Racing 1994-97
• Mattei Motorsports 1998-mid 2000
• Ultra Motorsports Mid-2000 to 2002. Ultra was also it's own Truck team before that before buying out Mattei, continued after as it's own Truck team after 02
• Robby Gordon Motorsports 2003-12

And then you have the teams that merged, which is just a huge mess most of the time. 

For example, after 2008 Petty Enterprises, Yates Racing and Gillette-Evernham Motorsports merged to form Richard Petty Motorsports. In and of themselves Petty Enterprises absorbed pe2, Yates Racing began as Ranier-Lundy Racing before becoming Robert Yates Racing before renaming as Yates Racing when Robert retired. Gillette-Evernham Motorsports began as Elliott-Hardy Motorsports before becoming Bill Elliott Racing, then was majority sold to the Gillette family and also took over the #10 from MBV Motorsports. 

Then you have teams that had multiple cars that merged and split, although that's fairly rare. Let me discuss Premium Motorsports. Formed in 2015 by combining Jay Robinson Racing and Identity Ventures Motorsports, it later absorbed Phil Parsons Racing, XXXtreme Motorsports, 1 of the 2 Tommy Baldwin Racing teams, and 1 of the 2 Michael Waltrip Racing teams. The other Waltrip car and Michael Waltrip Racing closed, but Tommy Baldwin kept his other team, meaning that it both merged and kept going. 

Confusing? Yeah, a little. Why does that matter? Keep reading!

But wait, there's more! Because most NASCAR cards don't list the team name on the card, and some of these merges happened in the middle of a season, you have to look at each photo, and have a decent knowledge of what sponsor goes to which team- or know where to look it up. Racing-Reference and Wikipedia were the main sources I used but not exclusively. 

And there's yet more! Because NASCAR allows the drivers to race in any division, you can't just know that all cards in one set for that driver belong to the same team. Although I don't think it actually happened in a card set, it is not impossible for a driver to appear on cards for three different teams in the same set. Since it's taken me literally years to get this all typed up I just can't remember. It likely would have been in the early days of the truck series, as most lower divisions don't get cards. 

With all that said, here's the screencap of the leaderboard:

And a closeup of the top 10:

You can see from this closeup why the mergers make a difference. Jack Roush's team holds the 2nd and 10th spot (as well as a lower spot that debuted last year). So I had to make the Actual Top 10

I used Excel to tabulate the totals of each team (LOVE that autosum feature!) with the teams that have changed names mixed in with the teams that have kept the same name their entire duration. 

I chose to combine Trackhouse Racing with the Ganassi team, considering it bought it, and kept one of the two teams going, even though it formed as it's own team a year previously. I did NOT count the Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing years with DEI, however, as it was a Ganassi operation with the Earnhardt name only. They are counted in the Ganassi listing. The argument could be made that Ginn Racing and MB2 Motorsports should be added to the DEI stats because they absorbed that team (Bobby Ginn bought out MB2, it's the same team) and I may revisit that some day. Wood Brothers Racing, the oldest team in the sport, also has a handful of cards from their combined Wood Brothers / JTG Racing entry, but it's under 10 cards and that was more like a JTG entry than a Wood Brothers entry. The JTG entry would also include ST Motorsports, and could be argued to include the Alliance Race Team as well. 

Maybe by my mentioning this you see why this took me so long to put together!

Not that I'm complaining. Like I've said...I love this stuff so much. I hope I can keep it going going forward, and remember to update it on the 1st of each month when I do my other updating, because if I forget...even for one month...it will all be invalid and I'd have to start over again, which would be pretty soul crushing and I don't think I would do it. Hopefully by putting this into words, on proverbial paper, it will help cement it in my mind. 

One thing about this that makes me sad...with this project's completion, everything is all done on Excel now. I began typing my collection into Excel back in 2000, and now, finally...I've completed everything I can think to do. I still have to maintain new additions, sure, but all the creation is done. I enjoy messing around on Excel too much so I'll have to think of something else to do in the future. 

Thoughts and pictures from FanaticsFest NYC

Last Saturday my brother and I went to the Javits Center in Manhattan for the FanaticsFest. This is a new concept that mixes a card show with a sports fan festival. Many of the sports leagues were there with displays, although disappointingly for me there was no auto racing representation at all. 

Overall, I liked it for the most part but there were a couple things that I did not care for at all. 

Getting the tickets was a mess- you had to go in the main door, then go back out the main door and walk the length of the building outside to get the tickets in an area that they have blocked off from any other entrance. My brother did this for me, because I could not have done that walking on my own; I'm still not recovered physically from the National. 

The other big problem for me was the noise. It was so loud I just kind of wanted to escape, it was like a jackhammer in my head. I actually considered leaving early without seeing everything because of it, but I figured that no, these tickets were expensive, I'm seeing everything, so I fought it out and saw it all. I am considering wearing my sound-cancelling headphones next year, it was so bad. I also had to yell to speak with any of the dealers, so much so that I actually had a sore throat for the next two days after it. 

Other than those problems, it was actually very good. The displays from the sports were a lot of fun, there were more card dealers than I thought there would be based on the layout I saw online, and I was able to add some really cool stuff to my collection. 

They have since announced that it WILL be an annual event, and I do plan to go back. I know I can't get to the National in Chicago so I will be able to get to one big card show at least. The fact that I live close enough to drive down that morning helps, too. no costs in hotels and travel is good because for the two of us to get in was more than $120, and even though my brother was mostly just waiting while I went through cards, I cannot do it without his help.

With the National and this so close together I am struggling physically right now, hoping I am recovered enough to do my favorite car show in three weeks; just going up and down to my basement to work on models yesterday was too much right now. 

The cards for sale trended more towards high end modern stuff. There was some vintage but it wasn't overwhelmingly dominant as it was at the National. It also tended to be on the higher end price wise, although that may be because I heard tables cost $3000 at FanaticsFest vs. $1200 at the National. (I don't know if that's correct, but I heard conversations at the show). Late 90s to late 00s were genuinely scarce at both big shows I attended. At the National it was roughly 75% vintage, 22% post-Covid modern and 3% everything else. At FanaticsFest it was roughly 90% post-Covid modern, 6% vintage and 4% everything else. 

Basketball actually seemed the most well represented at FanaticsFest which I believe is the first time I've ever seen that, after having attended my first card show in 1993. A far cry from the show I attended in 2004 that had literally zero basketball. Baseball and Football came next, followed by hockey and wrestling. All but two of the NASCAR cards I saw came home with me, and I already had the other two.

One thing I thought was really good about FanaticsFest is the diversity of the audience. There was a LOT more Black, Asian, women and young collectors than I am used to seeing. I don't know if that is because it was held in NY or it means that more people are feeling welcome in the hobby, or a combination of both. I'm happy about it regardless of the cause, more people in the hobby the better and those are HUGE portions of the population that were previously missing. I'm also used to being one of the youngest people at card shows, even though I'm pushing 40. That wasn't the case at FanaticsFest and from the snippets of conversation I heard, the vast majority of them are into the hobby because they enjoy it...between both shows I only heard one conversation about flipping. 

Now, some photos.

 The Javits Center is such a cool building. 

Lego Javits Center was very cool

Brooklyn Nets had a display but they were the only team that did in the sports I follow

NBA had a large display

Line was too long for me to stand on so I zoomed in on the in season tournament trophy

The Juventus soccer team from Europe had a display and their mascot!

The NFL brought out all the Super Bowl rings

and the trophies

MLS display

Soccer trophies

New York Red Bulls mascot

At the Mitchell & Ness display

At the Lids display

At the Artist Alley, RayGunn jumping over Ty Lue 😄

SI was there with memorabilia

I believe that is Derek Jeter doing an interview

UFC had a display

But now we get to the NHL display, which was my favorite of the sports displays. Because it wasn't just the NHL...it was also the Hockey Hall of Fame, which brought memorabilia from the three local teams! 

Unfortunately my Islanders overview photo is blurry, but I photographed all the memorabilia and the labels on them individually, which can be found in the photo album at the end. 

The NHL also had all the jersey designs on display. I took a detail photo of each one of them too.

The Topps booth was REALLY cool! The building was chrome- that's my reflection in the building!- and there were holograms of cards floating above the building. Although the NHL had my favorite booth from all the sports, the Topps booth was my favorite overall. 

WWE was there and selling belts with all the major sports teams logos

Major League Baseball's display

WWE's display. I posted both photos of Asuka's stuff because I know there are several bloggers who are fans of hers.

These were all in the Fanatics booth.

I'm somewhat dubious of their timeline of cards

Now we look at some cards in display cases that I either wanted to bring home and couldn't afford, or were interesting in sports I don't collect.

I sincerely doubt Mickey Mantle said that

The Hawkeye photo system is going to be revolutionary. I tested it with a card I bought, and it's so much better than the scans of mirror foil and Finest cards. I will absolutely be buying one when they are available...so much so that I'm not sure I want to scan any more cards that have foil on them until I get one! 

I really want to get Upper Deck this year, but it's being price gouged so much I probably never will. D&A actually raised their prices, it was $250 at the National. 

I opened every single one of these boxes when they were new and not being price gouged, 

I wanted one of those jackets but they don't make them big enough for me.

This was just part of the line for the autographs...the tail end of it. That section was PACKED, which surprises me considering how expensive they were. The ones I was interested in started at $200. I didn't do that. 

There is definitely room to expand, just on the main floor they used. The Javits Center has two other floors so there actually is a LOT of room to expand. 

On the way home we were stuck in HEAVY traffic, but some of the billboards were showing Olympic stuff which I enjoyed. Since the cars were not moving I was able to take nice, clear photos too.

It was rainy and hazy on the ride home and let me get this cool photo of the George Washington Bridge, too.

I was able to photograph all the cards I got, which can be seen in the album, but one card in particular stands out to me. 

Just a couple of days before the show, I commented in a Facebook group that Cale Yarborough was my most wanted autograph. He is the only driver in NASCAR's all time Top 10 winlist I did not have, but I hoped to pull his autograph myself. Since he will not be signing anymore as he died on December 31st of last year, I knew I would buy one. It turned out to be the second card I added from the show, after Mario. And I paid less than the asking price, as the dealer cut off a few bucks off my stack. 

Although I think the Gritty Portrait may be my favorite addition of the day! 

I took more than 500 photos, all of which are on my website HERE. Thanks for reading!