Phil ran this car in 3 races during the 1991 season under the Diamond Ridge sponsor~ His first start in the car came in the seventh race of the BGN season, the Pontiac 200 @ Darlington, where he started 34th, and finished 4th~
Phil's Racing Champions card for the #29 car~
His next race in the car came 5 races later in the Champion 300 @ Charlotte, where he rolled off 39th, and finished 42nd due to vibration issues after only running 19 of the scheduled 200 laps~ His final start with the Diamond Ridge sponsorship came in the 28th event of the season, the All Pro 300 @ Charlotte, where he qualified 20th, and finished 9th, 2 laps down~
He ran 3 more races during the season, with sponsorship from Wheels Discount Auto (Fay's 150 - Watkins Glen - St. 8th Fin. 15th), NesQuik (Gatorade 200 - Darlington St. 19th Fin. 29th), and WHOA TV 32 (AC Delco 200 - Rockingham St. 23rd Fin. 29th). He also attempted to qualify for the Goody's 300 @ Daytona, but failed to make the field, driving the Champion Rentals car~
Phil Parsons #29 Diamond Ridge trading card~
His next race came in the DieHard 500 @ Talladega, where he started 8th, and finished 41st due to a lap 25 crash~ His final Cup race with Diamond Ridge as his sponsor came in the Heinz Southern 500 @ Darlington, where he qualified 28th, and came home 19th~ Racing Champions made a die cast track car for the Heinz Southern 500, which I will be reviewing later~
Phil Parsons #29 Diamond Ridge Oldsmobile~
Perhaps Phil hadn't secured sponsorship at the time they produced the car, but the card has the logos on the car.. so I'm not sure what the reasoning was for the blank car~ Regardless, I think this is one of the coolest looking cars they made~
As far as I can tell, there were 4 variations of this car, all basically looking the same, but with minor changes~ The one exception being the older version with the older Oldsmobile body, the ones that tended to crumble apart due to metal fatigue~ This particular car was signed and numbered by Parsons himself, with this one being #146 of 10,000~
This car was sent to me, along with several others which I will be reviewing later, by one of my newest friends, Jeff~ I want to again sincerely thank him for being so kind and generous sending me these die casts~ I couldn't have been happier when I opened the package and saw all the great things he had sent~ I will cherish them for many years to come~
Below are some videos on Parsons, I couldn't find any footage of this actual car.. it's hard just to find anything about the guy~ Thank you all for stopping by and checking out the NASCAR Racing Champions blog~
Parsons hard crash 1998 Nashville~
Phil Parsons singing Born to Drive~ lol~
Phil Parsons violent flip 1983 Talladega~
Phil's only Cup win 1988 Winston 500 (full race)
There were no sponsors on the diecast because when Phil drove it that's how the car appeared. It's one of only a handful of times a sponsorless car got produced.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, I seen the car in old footage, and it originally was just blank like this~
Delete"That was a big problem, those absent sponsors on certain cars! It was so frustrating, just take J. Means' car for example. Without those sponsors, the car loses the charm it had with them. It's like taking the orange and TIDE off of D. Waltrip's #17 car back in the day. Yeah, we know that Mom and Dad weren't thrilled about seeing Budweiser, Coors, Chattanooga, or Skoal tobacco on our little cars in the 80s, but it just doesn't look the same without the real sponsors! To their credit, the positive side was that it pushed us to "create," which ultimately was a great thing."
ReplyDelete