Black November, Act I - 20 Blasters of 2014 Press Pass Total Memorabilia Racing

The Black November sale is going on over at Blowout Cards right now, with a new wave of deals released three times a week, which I think leads up to a big sale on Black Friday. A lot of it is stuff that I'm not too interested in (that's why it's on sale!), but there were some things that caught my eye. One item in particular spurred me to place an order; a 20-blaster lot of 2014 Press Pass Total Memorabilia Racing at a large discount.

Like Billy over at Cardboard History, I planned on spacing the blasters out over a series of posts, but once I started opening them I realized that I would quickly run out of things to say. I also have a hard time keeping unopened wax around. I want to find out what's in there. The blaster promises 5 cards per box, including one hit and one retail parallel.

Each box contained the same assortment of non-hit cards. One base card, one Red parallel, one Acceleration insert, and one Hall of Fame insert. You'd be hard-pressed to build a base set at a rate of one per box. A couple of the Hall of Fame cards I pulled were holofoil instead of mirror foil. I don't know if they are some kind of parallel or not. Back in 2014 I won a Hobby box of this product in a contest and I couldn't find much information on the holofoil cards then, either. There were a lot of duplicates among my Acceleration and Hall of Fame inserts.

There were a lot of basic tire swatch relics in my blasters. Sixteen of the twenty hits were basic tire swatches numbered out of # / 275. I guess I was pretty lucky to get two Kyle Busch relics in this group of eight scanned here. There are some other decent names in the lot, like Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin. I would have liked a little more variety among my hits, but I guess this is what you get when you buy discount blasters in bulk.

Here is the back of the cards. These relics aren't tied to any particular events or anything, so you just get a generic message of congratulations on the back. There is also a picture of the driver's car (or truck), which is better than a repeat of the portrait on the front.

Here is the next group of eight basic tire relics. There was a little more variety in the tire swatches this time around, with some cool ridges on the Kenseth and Truex Jr. cards, some cording on most of the others, and some lettering on one of the Ty Dillon cards. In spite of the cool relic swatches, these are all still all the basic versions that are numbered out of # / 275. Tony Stewart counts as a PC driver here for me, although I really only collect Danica Patrick and Josh Wise cards with any regularity. I will keep any Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Tony Stewart cards I get, though.

Breaking up the monotony a little bit, I did pull two firesuit relics. These are still basic relic cards numbered # / 275, but instead of a tire piece they contain a swatch of colorful fabric. They are cool enough, but don't feature drivers I collect.

That leaves me with two remaining hits out of the 20 blasters I opened. The first one I pulled gave me false hope, as it came out of the second blaster I opened and led me to believe that I might not pull thirteen basic tire pieces in a row afterward. It's a Burning Rubber - Chase Tire Edition featuring a piece of tire from Kevin Harvick's victory at Kansas Speedway in 2013, and it is numbered # 43 / 50.

This next hit came near the end of the break. It's a Dirt Track Treads relic card with a piece of tire from Austin Dillon's victory in the first Camping World Truck Series race at Eldora Speedway, a dirt track race. This one is numbered # 96 / 99. It's a pretty cool relic, and it's nice that I pulled the race winner.

Overall, this was kind of an underwhelming break. I was hoping to pull an autograph or two or maybe a larger variety of relic cards. I am glad that I didn't pay full retail on these blasters. Even at 50% off, this would have been a pretty disappointing break. At 75% off, it feels merely mediocre. I picked up a handful of other things in my order, and over the next couple of days I'll be going through them. Hopefully the breaks pick up from here on out. I don't know if I can classify this break as a failure, but it was certainly not a victory.