DGF2099 Productions-Introduction to Press Kits-1996 Ernie Irvan Texaco Press Kit

1996 saw Ernie Irvan settle into a routine in the #28 Texaco Havoline Ford, and this press kit was issued for that season.

DGF2099 Productions-Introduction to Press Kits-1995 Ernie Irvan Texaco Press Kit

This press kit, used for Ernie Irvan during his triumphant return to NASCAR in 1995 will be examined this week.

The Driver Suit Blog-Why I Hate Politics and Paint Scheme Update

By David G. Firestone

I have a lot of paint schemes to discuss and we will get to that shortly. I wanted to discuss something that took place before the Coke Zero 400 last week. It is a bit murky, but here is what took place.

Charlie Crist is a former governor of Florida, and a former Republican. After a brief hiatus from politics, he has annoucned his intentions to run for the Governor of Florida as a democrat. He had plans to run the #98 Phil Parsons Racing Ford driven by Josh Wise. After this was announced however, the Republican Party of Florida filed a lawsuit stating that it was a campaign contribution worth more than $3,000. Remember, this was the same team that was crowd funded by Reddit and Dogecoin at Talladega, and that sponsorship cost about $55,000. It was later reported that the Charlie Crist decals had been removed from the car. Phil Parsons Racing stated the deal was in response to a series of negative ads toward Crist, and that the Crist decals were part of a deal with recording artist Lee Brice. They also stated that they didn’t pull the sponsorship due to the lawsuit, and that the $25,000 sponsorship would be returned.

I frankly don’t buy any of that for a second. I think that it was because of the lawsuit, and that Phil Parsons Racing did not want to get thrown under the bus because of it. They tried to handle it as diplomatic as possible, but it still sounds sketchy. The other reason I have a huge problem with this is because the simple fact that politics and racing don’t mix. Look at what’s happened with F1 and IndyCar. Politics are a constant issue in the sport, and I for one am tired of it. Look at the Ayrton Senna/Alan Prost battle in the 1990’s! Look at The Split! Politics ruins racing!

This is not the first time a politician with deep pockets has sponsored a race car, but I hope that this is the last time. I’m not against politics, I’m against forcing it into something it has no place being in! If tobacco, cel phone carriers, and hard liqour have or had been banned from sponsoring cars, then so should politicians.

Ok enough serious stuff, on to…

PAINT SCHEME REVIEWS!

Jamie McMurray #1 Cessna/Hawker Chevy SS Nothing bad to say here…A+

Jamie McMurray #1 Lexar Chevy SS Great Color Scheme, great design, A+

Austin Dillon #3 Great Stuff Chevy SS Color scheme is good, the design looks very odd. The gold numbers and chain design does not suit the car at all, and if they were left off, I would give it an A, but this scheme earns a B-

Austin Dillon #3 NRA Museum Chevy SS Good color scheme, decent design, B+

Austin Dillon #3 Cheerios Protien Chevy SS Much too overdeisgned, decent color scheme, C-

Kasey Kahne #5 Team Stream Chevy SS Good color scheme, but Kasey loves to drive overdesigned cars, and this is no exception. I’m giving it a C which is a very fair grade here.

Kasey Kahne #5 Farmers Chevy SS Good color scheme, decent design, B+

Marcos Ambrose #9 Black and Decker Ford Fusion Good color scheme, Good design, A

Danica Patrick #10 GoDaddy/Florida Lottery Chevy SS It looks like two people designed this car, and they didn’t talk to each other while designing it. Both sets of color schemes are awful, and both design schemes are awful. F-

Greg Biffle #16 3M/DAV Ford Fusion Green usually doesn’t look good, camo never looks good, so this scheme earns an F

Greg Biffle #16 3M Aerospace Ford Fusion See Above F

Greg Biffle #16 NESN 30^th Anniversary Ford Fusion A bit less overdesigned, at least by Greg Biffle’s standards, and I do like the Red Sox and Bruins logos as well, so I will give it a C

Greg Biffle #16 3M Ford Fusion Good color scheme, decent design, B+. Nice change for Greg Biffle.

Kyle Busch #18 Interstate Battery Center Toyota Camry No. Redeeming. Features. Whatsoever. F-

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. #17 Cargil Ford Fusion Much MUCH TOO OVER DESIGNED! F

Jeff Gordon Panasonic Toughbook Chevy SS Blue and white work very well, and while it is a bit over designed, it works, and I’ll give it an A

Jeff Gordon #24 Pepsi Chevy SS Great color scheme, great design scheme, A+

Cole Whitt #26 Rinnai Toyota Camry The color scheme is good, and the design is great, so it gets an A+

Cole Whitt #26 Tapout Muscle Recovery Toyota Camry Simple design, great color scheme, A+

Boris Said #32 7-Eleven Ford Fusion I normally hate green on race cars, but this works well. I like the design scheme too, and I give it an A

Bobby Labonte #33 Thunder Coal Chevy SS Great simple design and a great color scheme, A+

Alex Kennedy #33 MediaCast Chevy SS The color scheme is awful, and the design is worse. F

Reed Sorenson #36 Theme Park Connection Chevy SS Ugly design, good color scheme, C-

David Gilliland #38 Long John Silvers Free Fish and Fries Ford Fusion Great design, great color scheme, great look, A+

David Gilliland #38 Love’s Truck Stops Ford Fusions CAMO DOES NOT WORK ON RACE CARS! F

Landon Cassill #40 Snap Fitness Chevy SS So So design, good color scheme C+

Kyle Larson #42 Target Chevy SS Whadaya Know? An A+ Patriotic scheme!

Aric Almirola #43 Waffle House/Smithfield Ford Fusion The understated patriotic design scheme works well, and the color scheme works well too. B-

Justin Algaier #51 CSSUSA Chevy SS Looks good, overall design is good, color scheme is good, and I’ll give it an A

Brian Vickers #55 Aarons/Florida State Toyota Camry Good design with a good design color scheme, A

Brett Moffit #66 Toyota Toyota Camry Good color scheme, simple design, looks very good, A

Tommy Drissi #66 Hercules Toyota Camry I don’t even know where to begin…it just looks awful. F

Martin Truex Jr. #78 World Vision Chevy SS Good color scheme decent design, B-

Dale Earnhardt Jr. #88 Kelly Blue Book Chevy SS A decent scheme, but a bit overdeisgned. Color scheme looks good. B

Dale Earnhardt Jr. #88 National Guard Chevy SS See David Gilliland Love’s above. F

Michael McDowell #95 K-Love Ford Fusion I like the color scheme, and the overall design is another good Levine Family Racing scheme that earns an A

Josh Wise #98 Dogecoin Ford Fusion Good simple design with a good color scheme equals an A grade

Josh Wise #98 Phil Parsons Racing Ford Fusion Since this design is what was raced, I will grade it as such. The color scheme is decent, but it is a tad too overdesigned. It is a D+ look.

DGF2099 Productions-Introduction to Press Kits-1994 Ernie Irvan Texaco Press Kit

This press kit, used for Ernie Irvan during his injury shortened 1994 season, will be examined this week.

The Driver Suit Blog-A Day At The Races

By David G. Firestone

Every summer, I make a pilgrimage to two places, Jim’s Original and The O’Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet. This last week, I did both. Jim’s Original is still good, and the Route 66 Nationals are always fun. This year, I went on Saturday and Sunday. Normally I would only go on Saturday, but this year I decided to double the fun. I went with Argie, a friend from work, and I spent Saturday watching racing and wandering through the pits. NHRA tickets promise that “every ticket is a pit pass” and trust me, they more than live up to that claim. You can walk around the pits and watch as the teams setup cars before races and fix cars after races. The wear and tear on nitro cars is such that the entire engine has to be disassembled, repaired, and reassembled between races, sometimes in as little as 45 minutes. Needless to say, speed is paramount.I had been fortunate enough to get a pass to the Don Schumacher Racing hospitality tent. This not only got me the tickets, but also a chance to meet Tony Schumacher, and Ron Capps. I came into the tent a little later than normal, and I got to listen Tony talk to the crowd, and take questions. I got a chance to ask him something that I have always wanted to ask a driver… “What is the weirdest thing you have ever autographed?” Having done autograph signings since I was 5, I’ve seen a lot of odd stuff get autographed over the years, and I was interested in the answer. He responded that he has signed a lot of body parts, arms, legs, etc, and that his wife hates that.

A few minutes later, he mentioned that he wears a 5-layer firesuit, as well as two additional layers of fire protection. That adds up to a total of 7 layers. Most NASCAR suits make up 3 layers, with an additional layer underneath. Nomex is not a lightweight material, and on days like Saturday, when it was 88 degrees outside, that can get very uncomfortable. He is also credited with the aforementioned canopy to Top Fuel dragsters.

One thing I love to do is to buy race-used equipment from dragsters, and I did so this year as well. I bought a couple of valves from Tasca Racing, one large,and one small,Both show tremendous use, and have chips missing from them. Valves like these are used for one race and then replaced. The wear they go through for one run is very evident.

The other race used piece of equipment is a gasket from Morgan-Lucas Racing. It shows a huge amount of wear, and is a very heavy, thick and durable gasket.

It just wouldn’t be a race for me without getting some autographs. I bought a Ron Capps funny car die cast, and had his sign it in person, and it looks really good. I had a pair of gloves I wanted to get signed, and I did, by Tommy Johnson Jr. My favorite item it this brightly painted helmet. It was signed by Robby Gordon when I bought it, and I got it signed by Clay Millian, Terry McMillen, Tony Schmacher, Tommy Johnson Jr.,Ron Capps, and the legendary Shirley Muldowney.

One thing I didn’t do as much this year was take pictures. I did take some, but not as many as last year. I did make a number of videos, as shown below.

That’s all for this week, I’ll return next week with a set of paint scheme reviews, and believe me, there are a lot of them! Hope you are all having a fun summer! Happy Belated Canada Day for our friends up North, Happy Fourth of July to my readers in the USA, and to everyone else, See you soon!

DGF2099 Productions-Introduction to Tobacco Cards-Garden Flowers-1939

The Garden Flowers set is from 1939, and this set has been mounted in a generic tobacco card album.

The Driver Suit Blog-Ron Capps and Tony Schumacher Engine Tests

Ron Capps and Tony Schumacher Engine Tests, Saturday June 28, 2014, Route 66 Raceway, Joliet, Illinois.

The Driver Suit Blog-NHRA Burnouts…In Slow Motion

How better to appreciate the subtlety of NHRA Burnouts than in 120p slow motion.

The Driver Suit Blog-Weekend Warriors-The SCCA Part 1

By David G. Firestone

While the Sprint Cup, IndyCar, and Formula 1 drivers get all the glory, the overwhelming majority of drivers are weekend warriors, guys and gals who spend their own money on their cars, and race for the love of the sport. These drivers aren’t “professionals” per se, but they still have a love for the sport.

It was on these drivers that the Sports Car Club of America, or SCCA was founded in 1949. It wasn’t about professionals, it was about enthusiasts who loved the sport, and who loved to race. As time went on, however, battles for control of sports car racing, and battles for control over professional auto racing became too great, and the SCCA had to start sanctioning professional events. With help from Curtis LeMay of the United States Air Force, the SCCA started racing at Air Force bases, and they became a nationally recogized auto racing sanctioning body.

Today, the SCCA sponsors many different forms of auto racing, including professional, hill climbing, autocross, rally racing, and club racing, which features unpaid amateur racers. As in all sports, the need for fire protection is constant. So what do drivers wear in the SCCA?

Made in November of 1992, this suit was made for Tommy Nilsson, who raced in a number of events in the SCCA California Sports Car Club Region.

It features a purple and yellow color scheme, with a small number of patches. It shows great use, and has a lot of wear on it. No arm gussets,or design on the shoulder epaulets, cuffed legs, and no logos on the legs,

This is the perfect example of the weekend warrior suit. Not designed for the driver, but bought by the driver. Not customized for the driver, but customized by the driver. An example of the uniforms worn by the majority of the people who make up this sport.

Wheel Reviews

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is more of a goofy racing comedy, featuring Will Ferrell as Ricky Bobby, and John C. Reilly as Cal Naughton, Jr., Ricky Bobby’s teammate. Ricky is a hot driver, winning all the races, while Cal comes in second, and harbors jealousy toward Ricky as such. As Jean Girard, a French former F1 driver begins to challenge him, he pushes himself too far, and wrecks at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He thinks his career is done, but gets back in the car, only to have fear overtake him and is fired by his team. His wife leaves him, and he winds up taking a job as a pizza deliveryman, before his estranged father comes back into his life, and helps him conquer his fear, by having him drive a muscle car with a live cougar inside it, and he starts his own team and fields a car at Talladega.

Ricky patches things up with Cal, Girard, and his team, and then the race starts. Ricky passes the entire field after starting at the back, but Girard retains the lead. After his replacement driver at his old team causes The Big One, only Ricky and Gerard are in contention for the race, due to the fact that their cars are the only ones running. The two crash into each other during the final laps, both cars stop short of the finish line, and both Ricky and Girard exit their cars and run across the finish line. Cal comes out as the winner.

Bascially it is a goofy Will Ferrell comedy, and from a technical standpoint it is really good. The driver suits look really good, and I love what the movie did with sponsors. Wonderbread Old Spice, and Perrier are all primary sponsors, and in terms of the humor of the movie works well. I can’t say anything bad about the movie, so it gets an A+

DGF2099 Productions-Introduction to Tobacco Cards-Garden Hints-1939

A full set of the Garden set from the WD & HO Wills Company mounted in a generic Wills album will be examined this week.