Indy Cars and Indy Cards

The month of May has always been my favorite 30-day slice of the calendar.  This was especially so as a child/teen because my birthday and the end of the school year both occurred in the fifth month of the year.  Furthermore, the blossoming spring weather transitioning into summer conditions has also contributed to my love of this time of year.  However, above all, my favorite thing about the month of May is that it's Indianapolis 500 time.

Since 2003, my family and I have made the 184-mile trek from Chicago to Indianapolis to visit the most famous raceway in North America to attend the annual festival of speed surrounding the hallowed Indianapolis 500.  In a tradition that originally started with my parents in the late 70's, the qualifications for the 500 mile sweepstakes has been circled on the family calendar for a long time.  Though not as exciting as the race itself, Pole Day qualifications provide a proper taste of the drama, pomp, and circumstance surrounding the event on a much friendlier budget and with less of a chaotic crowd.

Yesterday marked my 14th pilgrimage to the Brickyard to see who would be starting first on race weekend:

Being an avid trading card collector and a fan of several forms of auto racing, it's only natural that I've often sought cardboard commemorating Indianapolis and the most well-known race in the United States.  I've mentioned on this blog before how my foray into the world of NASCAR reinvigorated my interest in the cardboard hobby and eventually led me back to the world of baseball cards.  Even today, I maintain a hefty binder full of "NASCards," though my focus has largely "shifted" to the Cubs and other Chicago sporting teams.

However, NASCAR ain't Indy Car; this is quite apparent in how the two series market themselves. When it comes to trading cards, the premiere stock car circuit has had at least one Flagship release since the late 80's, be it from Maxx, Upper Deck, Press Pass,Panini etc. On the other hand, "Indy Card" releases have been spotty at best and they haven't had a single set since 2007.  Speaking as someone who is informally working on a collection of obtaining one card of every driver who I've ever seen make a qualifying run, this makes things quite difficult.

Sure, NASCAR and Indy Car have had a fair amount of overlap with drivers and those spotty sets from the past have helped me fill in some gaps.  Furthermore, while there is no full set or licensing deal for mainstream, pack-based sets, there is one oddball source of current Indy Car trading cards:

Roughly, diecasts are to racing fans as traditional baseball cards are to baseball fans. Thankfully, when it comes to packaging 1:64 scale models of racing cars, there is a long tradition of including a trading card in the blister pack.  For the past few years, Indy Car has had an exclusive license with Greenlight Collectibles to produce models for their current roster of drivers and, luckily, GL has not broken with that tradition.

The Takuma Sato card that kicked off this post (and who's back side you see above), came from one of those 1:64 diecast card pairings.  Fortuitously, my brother collects these diecasts with the passion and drive that I do Cubs baseball cards and also has absolutely no interest in the corresponding trading cards.  Therefore, when my he makes his annual splurge at the Speedway gift shops, I end up with handful of "Indy Cards" for my collection.  It's a win/win relationship.

Of course, as thankful as I am for my brother's kindness, this source is far from perfect, as illustrated by the packaging you see below:

While Takuma Sato, the defending Indianapolis 500 champion, gets a picture of his victory lane celebration on the front of his card, series veteran and fan favorite, Marco Andretti, gets a generic display card with a stock photo and his car number.  That is far less desirable - what gives?

You see, Greenlight only goes the extra mile for the previous year's Indy 500 winner and for the series champion (Josef Newgarden also gets a legit card).  Meanwhile, the rest of the circuit is left with the generic placeholders that you see below:

How lame is that?  I don't know if this is some sort of stimulation in their licensing agreement with Indy Car, but it just comes off as lazy to this collector.  As a result, even my absolute favorite driver, Graham Rahal, has never had his face on his own trading card, as he has never won the 500 or the series championship.  Although,m his card is a little different from the rest because his comes from the 2017 set, while the rest hail from this year's edition.  Still stock photography though.

On the bright side, while the fronts are uninspired, the backs do still contain a brief biographical write-up for each racer:

As a further bonus, the backs also make use of each racing teams' logos and combination marks.  If only Greenlight put as much work into the front of the cards as they did the back.  This seems awfully ironic to me - wouldn't you expect this problem to be the exact opposite, with a lazy back and adequate front?  How peculiar.

At any rate, this year's trip to Indy 500 qualifying was just as fun as ever.  Indy native, Ed Carpenter won the pole for the third time in his career, on the strength of a qualifying run that was almost a full mile an hour faster than second place.  Is there anyone else out there on the blogosphere who enjoys Indy Car racing and would be interest in an Indy set?

In the end, I guess I shouldn't complain too much, as one imperfect source for "Indy Cards" is better than none, especially since I get this oddballs on the house.  Nevertheless, I wish that Greenlight would spread their effort out evenly.  Well, actually, I just wish that Indy Car would go ahead and "greenlight" a standalone trading card product for the first time since George W. Bush occupied the White House.  

Get on it, Panini!