"But Have You Ever Seen NASCAR on Weed? That's the Way to See It, Man!" - AAA Texas 500

I've never been one to try drugs (I was never cool enough to get invited to those parties), so everything I know about them comes from movies, television, stand-up comedy routines, and stories recounted by people who know other people who have tried drugs. One of my sources for this information is the movie Half Baked. I watched it years ago, but one of the key scenes features a cameo by Jon Stewart as the Enhancement Smoker, who smokes weed to add excitement to every activity. Strong language alert for anyone who happens to be reading this and might not be into that.

Pretty funny stuff. Due to my line of work, I don't know many enhancement smokers, but I am pretty sure I know a whole lot of enhancement drinkers, who can't really enjoy anything without a drink (or two) in their hand. I felt like I needed a drink after watching the Denver Broncos lose to the Oakland Raiders this evening. Although they only lost by 10, the game never felt close and Oakland's offense seemed unstoppable throughout. Denver's offense is not good, and the teams really relies on the defense to keep them in games. The Broncos will probably make the playoffs, but with Oakland playing so well it might be as a Wild Card team.

Sorry about that football tangent that had nothing to do with marijuana or today's card. This is a 2013 Press Pass Showcase card of Danica Patrick. It's a Green parallel, numbered # 04 / 20, which is what led to the theme of this post. In weed mythology, 4:20 or 4/20 are the ideal time and date to smoke weed, because a group of pot smokers once arranged a meeting at that time to search for a hidden grow, and then a High Times editor and Grateful Dead fans spread the term to the greater public. At least that's what Wikipedia has to say about it.

Today's NASCAR race was the AAA Texas 500, which was actually more like the Texas 438 after the race was cut short due to rain. Danica Patrick started in 22nd place and fell two spots over the course of the race to finish in 24th. The start was about 4 spots better than her career average at Texas Motor Speedway, but the finish was right at her career average. She was much better at the track in 2015, finishing 16th in both races held at the track during that season. The season is winding down, with just two more races to go.

I don't think 4/20 cards are going to overtake 12/25 Christmas cards any time soon, but I still get a little chuckle every time I see one. I am always happy to add a new low-numbered Danica Patrick Card to my collection.

A Green Race Car on a Green Parallel Card

I considered watching today's Good Sam 500 NASCAR race on television, but I never got around to turning it on. That's all right, though, as I tracked the race leader board online while doing other stuff. Danica Patrick started in 36th place, but managed to work her way up to 19th by the end. That's still not an amazing finish, but at least it's a Top 20 result. She moved up two spots in the driver standings to 24th for the season. That's well short of Chase contention, but there is plenty of racing left.

Here's a nice Danica card I managed to pick up recently. It's a 2013 Press Pass Showcase Showroom insert. Showcase is one of the nicer sets that Press Pass put out, and this acetate insert card is a good example of the fun stuff you could find in the product. Danica herself isn't shown on this card, as her car is the star of the show. This is the Green parallel of the card, and it is serially-numbered # 05 / 25.

Oops, I Already Had This Card (Again): 2013 Press Pass Showcase Classic Collections Patrick / Stewart / Newman

This seems to happen to me fairly often, but I bought a copy of a card that I already had a copy of. In this case it is a 2013 Press Pass Showcase Classic Collections triple relic card featuring bit of sheet metal from the cars of Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, and Ryan Newman. This is whatever parallel version has a print run of 75 copies, with this particular copy being # 43 / 75. The copy already residing in my card boxes is # 15 / 75 and was acquired in the relatively early days of this blog, when I was still in the process of getting back into the hobby after a long hiatus. I'm not extremely sad about getting another copy, as it's a nice-looking card.

About the only thing that would make it cooler would be if the relics were swatches of firesuit instead of sheet metal. When it comes to NASCAR relics I prefer the firesuit relics. I guess that makes me kind of a creeper, in some respects. "I want the clothes that touched your skin, Tony, not some bit of your car!" Really I like anything like gloves, shoes, firesuits, hats. Some of the car relics are pretty cool, though, like the windshield and lug nut pieces that Press Pass did before they went out of business.

I'm a bit of a broken record at this point, but I hope someone picks up the NASCAR license soon and finds a way to put out cards as good as the stuff Press Pass was doing over the last few years.

I've been thinking about some hobby goals for 2016, but nothing has really sparked my interest yet. At least not enough to set a goal about it. I've toyed with the idea of trying to do a post a day on this blog for the whole year, but that just turns the blog into work and primes me for burnout at some point. I may still try to do it, but I don't want to put it in writing. I have a couple of things I want to chase down during the year and a few sets from 2015 I want to finish as well as a few 2016 sets I plan to chase. Maybe I'll put those in writing and maybe I won't. We'll see. Hopefully I won't spend too much time this year buying cards I already have.