1. Outta the can with The Rocket Man and a Cubbie Fan
OVERVIEW: Our first set is oddly situated on two different teams: Four of these drivers drove or drive for RCR (five if you count Bobby Labonte’s brief Xfinity stint for them) and three raced at one point for Roush-Fenway Racing. In other words, this would have been an awesome pack to open in 2009.
BACK OF THE CARD BONUS: Note the use of not only major team logos on the cards, but in Austin Dillon’s case, also his “personal logo” (which I should probably hate for possibly stealing from my site, but that is neither here nor there). Thankfully we don’t get Kurt Busch’s old “OUTLAW” logo, which was simultaneously hilarious and sad.
PICK OF THE PACK: I swear on the ever-changing Nascar rulebook that these packs were chosen at random—and yet here we are with a Derrike Cope card in my first shot. By the way, the card is numbered 110 out of 199, which is fitting since there’s a 110% chance that Derrike did NOT “…go out on his own terms”.
FINAL RATING: 4 lug nuts out of 10.
2. A swatch, a botch, and two guys like to watch
OVERVIEW: TWO Cope cards in this pack (seriously, I had zero to do with this selection), but besides them and a Corey Lajoie card, seven other high-quality drivers. With that being said, its slightly creepy how Alex & Denny appear to be intently watching Dale Jr., perhaps trying to figure out which track it is that he is the master of. Oh, and Rookie of the Year is “ROTY”, not “ROY”, you dimwits.
BACK OF THE CARD BONUS: BK Racing gets some love for giving Corey Lajoie “…his first opportunity to run a full-time schedule in…Cup.” To be fair, its easy to give someone an opportunity when you’re not planning on paying them.
PICK OF THE PACK: More Cope love from Donruss/Panini in this pack, getting a little backstory on Derrike’s pre-racing days as a baseball player. Anybody else imagining him boring his pit crew with stories of the time he hit a five-run homer for the win?
BONUS: It’s our first memorabilia piece! Denny Hamlin’s firesuit gets the cut-up treatment here. I wonder how they prepare these things for card-mounting—do they wash them first? If not, ew.
FINAL RATING: 8 laps out of 10.