u/WENDING0

James Robert Yates (April 19, 1943 – October 2, 2017) was an engine builder and founder of the Cup team Robert Yates Racing (or RYR for short). He purchased the team from Harry Ranier in 1988, with driver Davey Allison behind the wheel. Along the way he expanded the team to two cars and hired some NASCAR legends like champion Dale Jarrett and Hall of Famer/Ironman Ricky Rudd. Yates owned the team until retiring at the end of the 2007 season (with Rudd) with his son Doug assuming ownership and renaming the team Yates Racing. In 2018, Yates was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, about 6 months after his passing. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. drove this scheme at Darlington that year to honor Yates. Since Yates set up Rudd for one of his career best seasons (that saw Rudd second in points with a real chance to take it all until RYR experienced an end of season drop off that would make a roller coaster blush) I wish to honor him too. I only wish it was number 28 the run.

This week's SatuRUDDay post is very European as I purchased one of those 1:43 Quartzo models, and it is red. So Red! BLOOD RED!

I am not sure what Portuguese designer watched the most used VHS recording of the 1991 Coke600 on a 19 inch CRT/VHS combo television, but bro your color balance needs calibration. BRO!

The last photo I uploaded is a comparison of this little guy infront of my 1/24s for reference, so come see for yourself. Even my brown "under the lights" car meant to replicate the look of a night race at Richmond is not that dark.

The casting on the other hand is incredibly detailed, making the color choice even more confusing. They even glued a silver colored painted piece of plastic where the gas intake is for more realism. The interior is hard to see without removing the case but it appears to be a detailed plastic injection mold. It at least does not look like you would only find a single plastic pole holding a fake net if you were to take it apart.

Personally I love it. It is a bit of an oddity but a seemingly well made one.

They were out of boneless skinless chicken breasts. 😞

Long before the age of $40 million charters, there was a time in NASCAR CUP racing when you could just show up with a car and race if you were fast enough to qualify. Rudd was among the last era of drivers that could do that. After catching the fever from family friend Bill Champion, Alvin R. Rudd Sr. and Margaret Rudd agreed to help their teenage son Richard Lee Rudd enter into a small time casual affair we call THE DAYTONA 500!

Back in those days, you could toss together a car and show up to a track with hopes and dreams. This is what the Rudds did back in 1976, using the resources available to them as the proprietors of a Junkyard and Auto Parts business. This 1/64 is a replica of the first car they brought to Daytona for the start of the 1976 season, but unfortunately Richard DNQ'ed and went home early. The young Rudd did drive another four races in 1976 for his father though, with his best finish being the tenth-place at thar year's Firecracker 400.

The Rudds went full-time in 1977, which is what the 1/24 represents, although this configuration represents the Cook600 (World600 at the time) scheme they ran that year. With ten top-ten finishes, the young Rudd was named Rookie of the Year for the 1977 season.

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Racing in general is an oddity in terms of celebratory events. A whole team of people will work together to put one man (sometimes a woman) into a position to win a race. Depending on the level of competition that might be family members only or at the F1 level, hundreds of strangers.

So who really did all the work? I think those of us in the know, know it really is a team sport; however, the sad reality is that any NASCAR race only gives out 2 trophes: driver and owner.

That is why I am so glad that Tom Brown's 1994 Ford Aeromax was made by... some company in Bangladesh. I will admit I am kind of flying dead stick here. Big trucks are not my thing, but as soon as I saw this, I thought of this Rudd Performance Motorsports post card I had that featured Tom Brown on the back and honestly I am glad that he got some recognition.

Now if you excuse, I am off to look for a replica jack from the 1996 season.

Link to agreement text in comments for anyone who wants to look.

I do not collect trading cards, by I "collect trading cards" if they are the right type of card. The criteria for my interest includes oddities, rarity, a signature or comedy.

I am still not sure which one this specimen covers, since it seems to cover multiple criteria, but the theme of this card is that some is taking a creep shot and mailing it to my ALT account.

This card left me with questions:

- The phone is a Ricky Rudd branded phone? Where does one buy that? Asking for a friend.

- Why does the card have to be so creepy with a creep shot. No one could have asked Rudd to look this way and smile? This makes me look bad because now people will think that this is what Rudd Fans do. Now I am personally insulted... thanks card.

- How does the garbage camera in a phone that old have a perfect rendering of Rudd while also being pointed to the left of the subject matter? Is this some sort of after shot preview to see if you like what you captured? Pretty brazen behavior for a creeper.

- Why does it say all business at the bottom of the creep shot? At best this falls between pleasure and a crime (depending on the area).

- on the back, the card implies Rudd is thinking about how NASCAR has changed. Putting aside how it does not include if it is a good or bad change, that is still a hell of a leap to make. He could be thinking about lunch or taxes or he just saw a pretty lady.

- why is it such a odd size? In the final image posted demonstrates the creep card besides a normal sized trading card, and this oddity seems to be only 2/3 the standard size.

Well I guess that is enough questions about a crazy piece of cardboard no one will ever think about again, but one day I hope to get to the bottom of why NASCAR trading cards are so weird. I also wonder if the other 35 cards in the series are this weird? Is smoke doing a mirror selfie? Is Gordon's card just his back because someone took a photo of him walking away?...

Trading cards...

The year 1990 saw some amazing things happen: the reunification of Germany, the launch of the Hubble Telescope, the release of Days of Thunder, and Ricky Rudd joining Hendrick Motorsports as the driver of the 5 car. Yes, before it was piloted by Texas Terry, Rowdy, or Kyle Larson, it was driven but Rudd.

The 5 car would eventually pair Rudd with the detergent brand that would become synonymous with his name; however, there was a single year before that which saw Rudd pilot the 5 under the banner of Levi Garrett.

A left over sponsorship deal from when Bodine drove the car, Rudd did the best he could for the sponsor of his new ride. With 2 poles and a win at Watkins Glen that year, Rudd finished the overall season in 7th place, -829 behind the Champion: Earnhardt. Despite his hard work, or maybe because of it, Levi Garrett exited the picture and Rudd was paired with Tide on the 5 car after Darrell Waltrip left Hendrick Motorsports in 1991 to start his own team. It is well known that Rudd took his Tide sponsorship with him a few years later when he also left HMS, but imagine how different history would be if it went with Darrell to his new 17 team. Perhaps Rudd would end up taking Levi Garrett with him to Rudd Performance Motorsports instead.

There was not a lot of Levi Garrett gear made for Rudd's one year with the sponsorm so I ended up making a custom 1/24 of his car. The 1/64 comes from a Hendrick 100 wins set, and I am not sure where the hat came from, but the design likely makes it a product of the late 80s or early 90s. Whether it was a crew uniform or a consumer product is something I will likely never know but it was signed by Rudd himself at some point.

Today's diecast is not a real car but it is close. It is an alternate scheme for Rudd's 2005 Airforce car. Since a gold 21 on the side of a Wood Bros car is as common as green grass, it is easy to look at this and think yeah that makes sense; but sadly it is a fake. On the real scheme, everything that is gold was actually blue.

That said, I still love the way this scheme looks. More than on the actual scheme to be honest. I am sure every air force scheme goes through a ton of screening to protect the image of the airforce, but you cannot deny that the gold pops off the side. It gives you something to lock onto, when most Airforce cars just don't. I give this fake scheme (sorry Alternative scheme) a 10/10.

I think I need to get another Carney case. I still have about 5 free slots on my newest case, but I already have cars in mind for them. If I had another case, I could put up all the fake cars I want.

Not much to say about thisnone other than I did not know they made stockers in 2 sizes.

I am a little pissed at the poor job of the seller packing this item. Box showed up open and now the card is ruined.

Since the people of the North are celebrating Canada Day, the national day of Canada, I thought it would be fun to highlight some Canadian drivers throughout the day. Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of northern confederation which occurred on July 1, 1867. On that day, the separate colonies of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.

The final car I am sharing today was also Ron Fellow's final Cup series ride.

There does not seem to be a big story behind this ride. Fellows was hired for a one race deal (the 2013 Toyota/Save Mart 350) to drive the No. 33 car for part-time stable: Circle Sport Racing. He finished 25, a few spots behind fellow Canadian road course ringer (and F1 title champ) Jacques Villeneuve, who I do not think has any NASCAR diecasts produced for any of the cars he drove despite being the F1 champ once.

Anyhow, I love this car because the sponsor is Canadian Tire and it was raced in Sonoma. Canadian Tire is not in the USA and it is not a tire place, as context clues would lead you to believe. Instead it is a big box store that sells everything from camping supplies to deep fryers. I can easily kill a night watching *Foreigner's first time in a Canadian Tire* YouTube videos. The sponsorship likely happened because Fellows owned Mosport (later renamed Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, although I will shive a motherf***er that utters that name to my digital face) but the fact it came together at all still blows my mine.

Since the people of the North are celebrating Canada Day, the national day of Canada, I thought it would be fun to highlight some Canadian drivers throughout the day. Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of northern confederation which occurred on July 1, 1867. On that day, the separate colonies of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.

The 5th car I am sharing today is the Patrick Carpentier car that no one seems to be interested in: a Michael Waltrip Nationwide Toyota. They made a bunch but I have never seen a 2nd one.

For the 2009 season, after leaving G.E.M. with 6 races in the 2008 season, Michael Waltrip Racing announced that Carpentier would replace team owner Michael Waltrip in the # 55 NAPA-sponsored Toyota for the two road course races on the 2009 Cup schedule: Sonoma and Watkins Glen. Carpentier also competed in a number of races for Tommy Baldwin Racing in events that conflict with Mike Skinner's truck series schedule.

The Cup deal, while just a standard road course ringer contract, also got Carpentier in rides during multiple NAPA Auto Parts 200s at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

In 2011, after a few years of this agreement between Carpentier and Waltrip, Carpentier announced to the Toronto Sun Newspaper that he would officially retire from racing after that year's NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He ran a few more Cup races about 5 years later, but it was the end of his time with M.W.R..

Since the people of the North are celebrating Canada Day, the national day of Canada, I thought it would be fun to highlight some Canadian drivers throughout the day. Canada Day celebrates the anniversary of northern confederation which occurred on July 1, 1867. On that day, the separate colonies of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into a single dominion within the British Empire called Canada.

The 4th car I am sharing is the Patrick Carpentier car that this sub seems to love for some reason. Do not get me wrong, I do not disapprove, I just do not understand.

Carpentier made his NASCAR Nextel Cup debut on August 12, 2007, at Watkins Glen, in the Gillett Evernham Motorsports #10 Valvoline/Stanley Tools-sponsored Dodge, replacing Scott Riggs and started fortieth. Carpentier led for seven laps in the race near the midway portion of the race and wound up finishing in the twentieth position. This performance was enough to convince the Gillett Evernham Motorsports stable that Carpentier might be their key to success, but it was a rough start. Carpentier, along with fellow Canadian Jacques Villeneuve (driving the #27 for Bill Davis Racing) failed to make the cut, so his season started at the 2008 UAW-Dodge 400.

It was a rocky start but not without a success or two. On June 27, 2008, in just his 17th NASCAR race, he became only the second non-American driver to qualify on pole. It had not happened in NASCAR's top division since Lloyd Shaw (from Toronto, Ontario, Canada) won the pole at Langhorne Speedway in June 1953. Come race day, he didn't give up the lead easily as he led the first four laps. "That was a heck of a thrill," Carpentier said after the race. "Winning the pole on Friday was certainly a highlight of my career. But leading those laps was unbelievable. It's hard to put into words." Unfortunately, he would later be hit by brakes problems and would finish down in 31st place. Carpentier also earned his best career Sprint Cup finish by finishing 14th in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.

On August 30, 2008, Carpentier announced that he would be a free agent for the 2009 Sprint Cup Series, leaving Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Four days prior to Carpentier's announcement Gillett Evernham Motorsports had announced that they would hire driver Reed Sorenson for 2009 making Carpentier's future uncertain. A little over a month later, Carpentier was released by GEM after failing to qualify at Talladega. A. J. Allmendinger finished out the year as the driver of the 10 car for the final 6 races.