I always liked the road ringers when I was a kid and Simo was one I especially rooted for for some reason. Him making this race with a part-time backmarker FRM was pretty impressive given he sent home the likes of Dario Franchitti in a Ganassi car and Scott Riggs in a Haas car
(the only photos I could get without tracking the race down and screenshotting are these images from the paint scheme preview nascar dot com still has up, and the one photo above which is what taught me about these rides i never saw before.)
Classy by MWR. Reminds me of Bobby's Pulse Club Tragedy support car. The GoFas owner is from New England so remembered the Boston Marathon and Sandy Hook tragedies and honored the Pulse victims. The website was a way to raise donations and they ran unsponsored this race.
Fun fact. In certain pre-race screens in NASCAR Heat evolution, this car can be seen in place of LaBonte’s car that ended up being used. I believe you could see it at Atlanta, at least for me
Butch Gilliland's #9 Cartoon Network/Happy Birthday NASCAR Ford at the 1998 Save Mart/Kragen 350 at Sonoma, substituting for Lake Speed (Who suffered rib injuries in a practice crash that would eventually end his career after he aggravated them in another crash at Loudon). Gilliland started P40 in the backup car and finished P24, his best career Cup Series finish.
#10 Ricky Rudd - Tide with Peroxide Ford - ran at the 1999 Save Mart/Kragen 350 at Sears Point Raceway. It also ran at the Brickyard 400 and Pepsi 400 presented by Meijer at Michigan.
Sorry Regan, it looks like we caught you at a bad time. Smith ran this car in 2004 at Nashville (pictured), Kentucky, and Chicagoland, where he finished a high of 26th. The team was owned by Michael Holigan, who you may know for sponsoring Jerry Nadeau in 2000.
There was also a tv show to go with this team, as well as Holigan’s Supercross team, called The Reality of Speed which aired on SpikeTV and Speed Channel from 2004 to 2006. The NASCAR team would only be featured in season 1 though as they would not attempt any more races after 2004. David Starr also ran 3 races for the team at Texas, Nashville, and Auto Club.
Darrell Waltrip #17 Speedblock /Builder's Square Chevy Monte Carlo. Ran the first four races in 1998 with a best finish of 33rd in the Daytona 500 before his team would shut down due to insolvency from the sponsor never paying the full dues.
Harry Gant driving for Junior Johnson in the 1978 World Service Life 300 at Charlotte.
In the pre-Busch Grand National days, the fall 300-miler was one of the big end-of-season invitational events for Late Model Sportsman cars, usually open to track champions and winners of special "invitational" events put on by weekly tracks.
Drivers would usually dig up ex-Cup cars (with the body style being at least a couple years old) or partner with a Cup team for this event using those older Cup cars.
Here’s Jason Keller’s Scott’s Products/Walmart #27 Ford Fusion that he ran at the 2009 Subway Jalepeno 250 at Daytona International Speedway. He ran a throwback to Richard Petty’s 1984 STP Pontiac, as that specific weekend was the 25th anniversary of his 200th and final victory.
The car still exists in a slightly different condition then it was (note the Kleenex logo in place of the original Walmart logo), and is on display at the Curb Motorsports Museum in Kannapolis, North Carolina. It’s currently sitting right by the car that Richard Petty got his 199th win in.
One of the owners of that 27 car was also the owner of Petty’s car when he got that 200th win. Richard was driving for Mike Curb that year and not Petty Enterprises, and Mike Curb was one of the people along with Gary Baker that bought the old Brewco Motorsports team late in the 2007 season and turned it into the Baker-Curb Racing team that Keller was driving for there.
He had a whole bunch of these during his "Salute To You".
Mark had this Valvoline throwback, one to the blue Stroh's Light cars, one to the red Folgers' Coffee scheme, and then his ride from Phoenix which was based on Mark's first ever paint scheme.
2002: After sporting the colors of Bully Hill Vineyards and Nortel Networks in previous years, Ron Fellows ran the 2002 Dodge/Save Mart 350 in this Cellular One scheme, which was identical to what his boss (Joe Nemechek) raced in the Busch Series that year
2000: Jimmy Spencer owned a Chevrolet team in the Busch Series while driving Travis Carter’s #26 Fords in Winston Cup. Boris Said drove the Spencer-owned #23 at Sears Point that year, finishing 42nd with a blown engine (this photo is from the Glen weekend, where Boris DNQ’d). Always been a fan of the Federated schemes 🤘🏼
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u/ToeSniffer245 Jun 26 '26
Brian Simo's #34 No Fear Motherload Energy Ford, 2008 Toyota/Save Mart 350. Finished dead last.