The year 2000 was a very good year for me. I had just turned 18, about to graduate from high school, and generally feeling on top of the world. 14 years and many miles later, I’m sitting here thinking about grad school and the future. A lot has happened since that summer, and I’ve moved halfway across the country, but a couple of things have made the journey with me. One of them is my Mark Martin diecast. I thought I would share a few pictures of it with you and tell you a little about how it came my way.

I was part of a fairly large youth group at my church when I was a kid, and every year we would buy a gift for each of the graduating seniors. 2000 was a slightly unusual year, though; as I was the only senior in 2000, they decided to buy me a going away gift that they knew I would like. Even as a kid, I was the NASCAR guy. My love of stock car racing runs long and deep, my friends. I grew up next to Lebanon I-44 Speedway: what can I say?

They got my this, a 2000 Ford Taurus Winston Cup car, driven by Mark Martin for Roush Racing. Roush came up with this cool “war paint” scheme, which they used on the car with Valvoline and Eagle One. I think they pulled it off pretty well. 2000 was a good year for Martin; he earned 21 top-10 finishes, including one win at Martinsville – one of my favorite tracks, incidentally.

You’ll have to excuse my shoddy picture taking, and the halo effect that keeps showing up in the pictures. You can tell this car is mass produced on an assembly line, but unlike its life-size counterpart, the bean counters didn’t bother with details like QC or overspray. On the bright side, they painted the fuel filler neck!

One of the cool things the youth group did was to sign the car. We can debate the merits of writing on a collectible car with a Sharpie, but I have no plans to ever sell this, so I’m OK with it.

Over to you: do you have this car or any 1:24 like it? What are some of your favorite diecast collectibles?

 [Photos Copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Marcal Eilenstein]