The Dale Jr. Download - The Secret Process Behind the NASCAR Diecast with Lionel Brands Group

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Kelley Earnhardt Miller welcomes Howard Hitchcock and Richard Barry, the CEO and COO of Lionel Brands Group, to the Business of Motorsports for a conversation that pulls back the curtain on one of NASCAR's most beloved and misunderstood businesses. What most fans see as a toy or a souvenir is actually the product of a 12-to-18-month process involving complex CAD data from OEM tech centers, hand-applied waterslide decals, Chinese factory peak seasons, and approval chains that run through teams, NASCAR, Goodyear, and every single sponsor on the car. Howard and Richard break down why scarcity is not a bug but a feature, how the collapse of single-sponsor deals reshaped the entire product line, and why getting confetti placement right on a Chase Elliott victory car matters more than most people would ever imagine. They also get personal, talking about what drew Richard to invest in a brand with 126 years of history, why Howard collects presidential china, and how a three-year-old kid getting a diecast signed at a fan event captures everything this hobby is actually about. If you have ever wondered how a win on Sunday becomes a collectible in your hands months later, this is the conversation that explains it all. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Welcome to the business of motorsports. It is yours truly, Kelly Earnhardt Miller. You know, one thing that I really hope that this series does is open up people's horizons. I got in a lot of trouble and I got challenged luck. I don't know why you're coming here. You don't trust us. I said, no, it's not I don't trust you.

I'm running a business. A lot of people kind of feel like, well, we're. We're never getting back to where we were. Why did we ever get to where we were? There's so much more involved in decision. I mean, I want to rip somebody's head off every day. I'd say yes to him. Oh, you say yes on the phone.

Well, he made me say. This episode of Business and Motorsports is presented by Arby's. Don't forget about your Arby's meat in three bucks. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. I am so pleased to be joined on this episode of Business and Motorsports by Richard Barry, the CEO of Lionel Brands Group. How are you today? I'm amazing. Thank you.

Great. And Howard Hitchcock, President and C.O. of Lionel Brands Group, a new title for you and a new title for you. Indeed. And super excited to have you as my guest today to talk about some really neat passion points for our NASCAR fans, right? Absolutely. This podcast, you know, is kind of meant to bring that fan into the business side of our world of NASCAR. And so I'm excited to talk with you guys.

You know, everybody kind of has this object that takes them back in some place of time. You know, I've got a whole shop full of those kind of objects in storage. A lot of things I like that are setting out on the table like these. But there's these items that kind of take you back in this collectible world. in our world, Firesuits, helmets, tickets, and diecast. This little piece of diecast

brings a lot of imagination and passion to life for people. When you look at the business of die cast in NASCAR, and either one of you, I know Richard, Richard has already professed. He is not as up on NASCAR as I know Howard is. Howard has been at this for 16 years. But that perspective is cool,

because just like new fans in the sport, you're one of those right now. So that that perspective is neat. Do you see the die cast business being kind of a toy business, a collectible business, memorabilia storytelling? Like, you know, what do you see in the business as? I'll jump in and go first. I think, and I know that this is going to be a shared opinion, but it's a little bit of all of that, right?

I think it's absolutely a collectible business, a merchandise business, which is woven into storytelling. And, you know, it has evolved from what it was, which was essentially a lot of drivers had one primary pain scheme. And, you know, over the course of time, since I've been doing this, then there was two, then there was three. Now we're at some of them, it's almost every... 17, whatever. But, you know, the thing about it. it is, I think to the customer, to the individual collector or consumer, it's different things to different people, right? I think we're less toyetic than we could be and actually are going to

move into that direction. That's one of our objectives as we bring these organizations together without losing any of the authenticity, the realism, the accuracy that we love and pour our hearts into to make the cars that are on the table here. Right. So it's sort of checks all the boxes, and it does a little bit depend on who you are and what you're collecting. But I could absolutely tell you the ultra collectors. It's based on an experience, a passion for a driver, a passion for a particular paint scheme, you know, and something that they want to commemorate in a story. Richard, you know, being part of the group that bought into and created this Lionel Brands group through Lionel Racing.

What is it that you see in these miniature cars? Because you have a great background in the business and formerly with Toys R Us for a really long time. What is it that you see about these cars that will connect the fan, you know, and provide what Howard's talking about in terms of that collectibility and moving into different areas for that? I think the number one attribute is authenticity. The authenticity,

that's delivered here. It's very difficult to think about other companies that can deliver this level of detail and authenticity and do it in a way where there's different finishes, different quality that are going to appeal to various different fans. So whether it's somebody buying a piece of 164th at a mass retailer through to, as Howard says, those Uber collectors that really want that totally unique car,

want the autographed car, something which is also very special. And the fact that, you know, Lionel over time has been able to capitalize on taking a race day, seeing a race win, bringing that to market very quickly, and really fulfilling what the fans saw on a Sunday afternoon, and then delivering it to them as something that they can have and cherish on their desk and collect, that's a pretty cool set of attributes. here. It is. Howard, you talked about, you know, the reasons that people purchase these collectibles and the toys that are in Walmart. You know, what, what do you see in terms of the share of the collectible market versus the opportunity that you have to go into the toy market? Because,

you know, I've worked at action performance, which was the die cast in the day, and there was a lot of different levels. And it's exciting to hear about, you know, moving into different realms of where we can find the products and all because, you know, you take the kids through the Walmart and they see the toys and they want to play. I know a lot of the ones that I have, why it wants to get out my 14-year-old. And I'm like, oh, you got to be so careful with that, you know, because it's my old 38 car or it's something of my dads or whatever. And the next thing I know, the, you know, they'll be in the dirt track race or whatever. And I'm like, okay, that didn't go so well. But, you know, what, what do you see that share looking like and how does, you know, that work for

the fan in terms of the collectible? Because they're very particular. The collectible people, very particular. Well, you know, yes, you're absolutely correct. I will tell you that really all of our consumers are very particular. So there is the, there is the Walmart space, right? The Target, Walmart, Myers, you know, that space. And those collectors, we tend to view a little bit more like completionists. So the way we have them set up is in waves. We create like Mix 105 and 106. And there's a checklist on the back.

And so everybody wants to collect those. And the kids will collect them for the purposes of play and running them on a track and using their Hot Wheels track or whatever, creating their own track systems and having a race. I mean, we've gotten pictures. My son, my son used to do it. He had buckets of 64 scales, right? And he used to, like, stage his own event.

And that would go on. And that's a really cool play pattern. But there are collectors that exist there that are also going to hunt the liquid colors that are the special cars that we have. As you then move into the collector space, you know, the diecast is the jersey of the sport. I mean, that is the reality of the situation. You know, with stick and ball sports, it's a jersey. You connect through your driver.

It's a driver-driven sport. You connect through that driver primarily through a die-cast car. There are t-shirts and other things, but this is the authentic piece that you collect. And so the kids that are playing with them are going to grow up remembering them that then move into the next level, the more approachable collector grade that you buy at track, you buy at NASCAR.com, you buy from us, you can buy from your hobby shop and dealer. And then you move into the elites and the ultra elites, right? And so it gets more detailed.

It does get more expensive, but the quantities come down. So, you know, you have an opportunity to have, a little bit more of a special piece each time. But that's kind of the evolution of how things work. The cool part we've been able to do more recently is sometimes cars don't get made, right? There are so many cars for so many drivers. But then we've started harvesting some of those cars. You know, MOQ is a, so this is a MOQ is a speak that most consumers never talk about.

In our space, they understand what MOQ is, right? They talk about that. But, you know, we've lowered the MOQ on 64. So now more of them are getting made. But we would use some of the ones that didn't get made as fodder to go into the cars in mass, which makes them more collectible, right? And so we'll use them in the advent calendar and different things that we've done there. And so it's this cycle of, you know, we obviously there are certain drivers that sell better than others. There are certain paint schemes that, you know, go beyond what a normal driver would sell.

but at the same time we really try to represent the entire sport. Authentically deliver for each OEM, for each car, as accurately as we can, the authentic experience across the board. And so that's kind of how we've built this business. And I think we've got this nice little segmentation of, you know, these cars sell here for this price. But you can kind of get really cool cars that you can't get in the collector space because they're not available. So it's a little bit of a hunting pack and you're kind of trading people back and forth between them. But yes, the collectors do want to protect that collection. We're going to get into a lot of the conversation, a lot of the points that you made in terms of, you know, what makes a good collectible and one that you get to produce with the MOQs that you spoke of and sometimes when they don't make it right.

But Richard, I want to talk about coming into the new role in Lionel brands. You've got a tremendous background in toys and collectibles and the like. what did you see in Lionel racing that you felt like this was a good fit and a good investment? So first of all, we wanted to buy this business for a long, long time. It took us a while to ultimately land it, and the relationship that Howard and I had ultimately was very important in making that happen. But first of all, brands are important. And, you know, if we think about Lionel and its heritage now 120,

26 years old. We see it. Our owners, myself see it as a privilege to be part of the Lionel family and the heritage that goes with it. But then you look at, okay, where are there synergies, where are the things that we have that we're going to be able to leverage? And things that are defensible as well. And when I think about the brands here and when I think about Lionel Racing, and we've talked a little bit about this already, There's a uniqueness, there's a quality attribute. There is an authenticity here, which is important to how we think about brands.

And the brands that Round 2 have owned, they don't have the 126 year history, but there are some there that have got very significant heritage, AMT, MPC in the Model Kit Arena, Johnny Lightning in Dicast. those things are all built on a strong heritage, but also on being authentic and being really the leaders in the categories that they're in. So for those reasons, we looked at Lionel Racing and thought that that was a perfect fit. And then as we looked at the category overall, you know, DiCast as a category, whether it's in NASCAR or in the kid space, has been a fantastic cast.

for really seven to ten years at this point. You know, that's very, very attractive to us. And then beyond that, you know, we have a die-cast business at round two. There was a die-cast business here that we could put together. We could leverage huge amount of content that we own tools and brands that we could leverage. Those things together made this feel like a really, really great fit. But fundamentally, the brand, the health. heritage of Lionel Racing, the heritage of NASCAR, the fact that the wholesome nature of those

things, those things were really important to us as we thought about making an investment here. Yeah. It's really fascinating and exciting for me to hear some of the brands that you talk about, Johnny Lightning, that, you know, I was like, ding. Because having a 14-year-old boy, I was telling you before we started, you know, I've looked at, you brought up big country toys. Howard, you know, I go down the aisle at Tabi Lobby and search out in any, really any store where there's little things to buy, you know, why it was very into tractors and trucks and this and that. So a lot of those brands really resonate. It's very exciting to think about, of course, the Lionel Train business that I'm familiar with as well in terms of having a little boy.

But for our NASCAR cars to jump into that category, you know, to walk. down the aisle at Hobby Lobby, hopefully something that we see, that Lionel brand die cast race car toy. I can see the Camaros. I can see all the different things that are lined up there in the halls. So, you know, those distributions,

I'm sure that's going to open up some distribution for you guys and things like that. It's very exciting. Yeah, absolutely. Very, very exciting. That brings me to kind of thinking through what is going to be the balance of our collectible market, It's something that these cars have been known for all of this time.

And Howard, I know over your 16 years, you've had to have dwelled in this a lot. And not kind of over-commercializing the opportunity for the product to be available. I mean, I think with the new organization, Lionel Brands Group, the really cool part is the teams that have done what they do are still in place. Yeah. Across the board, right? So Lionel Racing, the Lionel Train side, the Legation. round two companies, all of the product people, all the artists, all of the folks that are putting the products out there are still in place. Yeah. And to your point, collectible businesses

are challenging from a business perspective because you always want more. You always want as much as you can get on the business side, right? So that's the part that, you know, the finance guys, CFOs are like, well, wait a second, we could have done this. We could have done that. And then there's the product and the passion side and the marketing side. And like, how do you, keep the authenticity. You don't want to overproduce. I mean, look, in the days of motorsports authentics, which I was part of, there was a huge problem with having too much stock and then liquidation of products and a lot of not good stuff. Now, that was done for reasons. There was financial reasons tied to that. But it was the wrong decision for the

business. And we have since that time really peeled back to have the market tell us what it can digest, right? That's, we do sales sheets for pre-orders. And we actually run a lot of the train business in the same way. But we, we go out to the market and we pull the market to say, okay, is there enough interest in this car to make it? And then how much are we going to build? And that's the decision factor. We don't see that changing in how we operate this business. And again, having somebody, both Richard and I, we are collectors of things, right? We both have our passions about what we collect. Some of mine, I have some cars and trains at home. I've got some other things. I collect presidential China, which is a little bit of a unique thing, right? Lots of

plates. So every time there's a conference call and I'm home, there's like all these plates behind me, which stems back to like, you know, one of my first jobs. But so you understand the collector mentality and you want to maintain that collector mentality, right? That's a very important part of it. The cars that are sold at mass retail are designed to be in volume. The promotional items that we do are designed to be in volume. But the cars that are numbered, the 24 scales that are numbered and are special, these small ultra runs of autograph cars, of special finish cars, that is really what the passionate collectors target in on. And that's what we want to maintain. So there is a balance between selling as much as you can sell and the balance of not destroying

the market. And we know, the people that are doing it today have been there when it was not in a good place. And we we fight very hard to make sure we're making the right decisions on a business day in and day out on these things. And talking about that, you've been, I mentioned, been with Lionel for about going on 17 years now, 16 years. And so I want to kind of go back to Lionel coming into the NASCAR space and the NASCAR ecosystem. What were some things about the business? And I live through, you know, the DACAS business as well before my dad's passing. You know, what are some things that were healthy when you came into the sport?

And over your 16 years, what have you seen has changed from that standpoint? And that you guys have made better. That's a big ocean to boil. It is a big one. Just swim in the little pond right now. Right. We'll try to stay focused on it. I think what's really changed is the general marketplace, and I've already touched on this,

the way cars are brought by the teams, right? It's become so expensive, I don't have to tell you this, to operate a team. Sponsorship is key. You have to have all these sponsors. And finding that one sponsor who's going to be the primary sponsor on any car for the amount of money, it just doesn't happen today. There really aren't one primary car sponsors.

And so that has changed the market in total because you're talking about now instead of having maybe two or three primaries and maybe one or two special. for top drivers, you're really talking about having dozens of cars for a lot of different folks. And so the way we approach that and the way we have to process that, we're running more art through the system, more packaging through the system, more approvals through the system, you know, and all of that. And that makes more work to make less quantities, right? So that your quantities, you know, are much smaller per car, which actually is more

expensive because, quite frankly, the more we buy, the lower the price point, right? And so it's this balance of how do we control cost? We work with one of the largest toy factories in the world. It was one of the partners that you worked with when you were back at action. And they do an awesome job. There are not many factories. I've quoted this out with others to see what it looks like. And their factories for what we want to do, the quantities we want to make, the packaging

we want to do, and the detail that they have to go through, they were going to charge us. What we're charging is wholesale prices when we're selling to dealers. So like it's a very complex business and it's gotten more complex. And I would say I think what we've done really well is manage that complexity into something that creates an authentic experience and delivers a quality product. I would say that was in all things. And we've had up years and we've had down years. And we're always at the mercy of when we get the information. And that could be we struggled a little bit this year to get some of the detail we need it for the Chevy, right, the new Chevy.

And so that made that a little bit later. It has a knockdown effect. A lot of people still don't understand. And it's supported by the things like Amazon and now the Walmart instant deliveries and stuff. The products that you see on a shelf in a retail store started 12 to 18 months before they got to that point. Right? And nobody, the average consumer,

and we've tried to educate on that. The average consumer does not understand that. Does not understand the work that goes into the engineering, finding the source that's going to produce it, getting it made, the packaging, the approvals, if it's licensed, who's got, you know, certain requirements in that space. All of that goes into the finish good. And we do live in a world, I'm guilty of it, you know. We wanted it yesterday. Yeah. Why, you know, I ordered it last night at 10 o'clock and it's not on my doorstep at three. Like, I don't understand. And,

you know, so it's hard when we're reacting to, we get a paint scheme, you know, a team has a partnership. the sponsor wants to announce it a week before the race because they want as much noise as they can going into that race. Completely get it. They're writing the big check. You've got to do what they want. But that starts us behind the scenes, right? And so one of the things, you know, quite frankly, you know, Joe Mattis, we have built

some amazing programs in secret behind the scenes that have been some of the largest programs in the marketplace. And it's because of the partnership we've had, the trust we've had, and the integrity on the product and we have done all the work in the background, gotten this all done. And I mean, you can, you know, and still preserved. Preserved all of that integrity. And there are a handful of teams that follow that, that passion and that sort of way we do it. But that's been really the biggest challenge. Cleaning up, cleaning up the coming out of motorsports, you know, when, when the rights were sort of fractured up, we originally did not have the mass rights that went elsewhere.

So we were really focused on the core collector space. And, and we really had the opportunity. opportunity to clean up that entire process. And so I would say that was probably our biggest challenge and I think our biggest success. Yeah, probably a good thing, right? Yeah. You felt like that door was closed, but yet it allowed you to really focus and it did and focus on that. I remember, you know, just in my time, you know, we were, this was the dog that wagged the tail, right? This, everybody wanted to get you as much as they could so that their dockhouse was ready for Daytona and or other special opportunities. And it's definitely, just with the marketplace and the economy and so on and so forth.

The sponsorship is so much more important in social media. And that's the other thing, you know, that is really tough for you guys to preserve the integrity of an announcement or something like that is that it's so much more readily available to get someone's hands to get on the artwork or one little peep by someone and it can spoil the whole thing. So it is definitely something that you have to work really hard on. And you mentioned something else, you know, about the question. quantities and things. And I think our Daytona car last year, the Travelers, Daytona 40 car,

was exactly what you were talking about in terms of where could all the money have been made and what we thought we were going to sell, right? And that car was, you know, under high demand. And everybody sat around after the fact and goes, gosh, I wish we would have made more of those, right? But to your point, that protects the demand and the supply of all of that and just makes the next one that you want that much more. more. What's the right word? More bad or baddest, more bad, whatever that word is. Yeah. Well, it actually, it creates a secondary market. Yeah, exactly. So somebody does have them and they want to resell them. And that, that's good for collecting, right? And so while I think the investment side

of this, you know, back in the old, right, for race fans only QBC days, it was high investment, right? Like people were stuck in, sticking those, like, top of their closet for college education. I don't think, I mean, I think there's some degree of that, but I don't think it's quite what it was. But, you know, when there was enough demand, Traveler Whiskey car, perfect example, done in secret, built, right? We had, you know, polled our key audiences, had some in for the races, more on the way. There was enough demand to do a race version. And so we went off and did a race version, right? And then so, but it was a stepped approach.

It wasn't like we just flooded all these cars, wound up being the top one, two, and three car of the, you know, and then we did the sound base. The sound base was a super cool thing, right? Yeah. And so, you know, and we've got a similar situation, honestly, with the host of our win, this in cup, this, now that wasn't done in private. But now we've got this win that's an absolute rocket chip, right? And managing that because the numbers, you know, you see it and you're like, oh my gosh, like we, how, you know, we're already having conversations. How many should we build, right? And it's like, let's tap the brakes.

We want to make sure that we're, talk about that process. So you send the sales sheets out. I'm a little familiar with it, having done this. So you send the salesheets outlets on a particular car and you get, I don't know what the numbers are, but you get 37,000 they want to make of these. Yep. What do you do? Jump up and down.

But what do you do? You know, like, do you want to make 35,000? Do you want to make 30,000? Like, how do you, where do you figure out the number? So we look at. What is a high number right now in terms of producing? If it gets to 8,000 to 10,000, that's a really big one. Yeah, I was just pulling.

as well over that. Wow. So, yeah, I mean, on average, I would say really good sellers are three to five. So what's the decision making going into how you manage that, you know, demand and create those secondary markets and things like that and protect the integrity? So we have multiple opportunities. So there's the initial sales sheet. Sales orders come in. We go live with it on linelracing.com. You know, NASCAR.com comes in. The team shops. The sponsors get pulled. So you even going out to the consumers ahead of the fact. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. I mean, from the, like for a race win. And so you have to go back and tell them at times that something's not going to be made.

Yeah, we take the order. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, lately, business has been been pretty good. And so what we do is we look at that. We have tally sheets. And we tally every single item offered. Right. So if it's the special finish or if it's whatever. And we add all that up. And that's where we get to our total. So let's say we're in the 1,500 piece range. Well, that's made MOQ, no problem. And then we look at like where it comes from. And so, you know, we know, we know, we know. there's a little bit of cancellation rate that comes out of this factor. And we look at, oh, well, you know, we know this channel is not pre-selling. They're forecasting. That seems kind of high. Kind of like when you invite people to something, you know that there's going to be a rate of people that don't show up. There is. Yeah. There absolutely is. And so we adjust that down. And it's, it comes to, you know, kind of experience, right? And so you just, we have a feel for this now at this point. Will we get it wrong once in a blue moon? Yes. Do we get it right most of the time? Yes.

And we build what we feel is appropriate. But I can tell you, walking through the aisles, you know, it used to be there were rows and rows and rows of diecast. You walk through the aisles now and it's like, there's 12 cars there and there's eight cars there. There's maybe one car there. It's radically changed. And so it really has changed the whole way that product is consumed.

Yeah, I walk through the aisles of the Target or Walmart looking and I always go and look to see what's available. And I like seeing the sell out. But at the same time, I don't want to see the sell out because I want things there for people to buy, right? So it's certainly. We always get beat up for that. It's like, why didn't you ship my store in this in Mooresville, right?

And it's like, well, we don't really control that completely. Yes, exactly. We ship to a distribution center. But I think if you don't maintain scarcity, driving collectibility, you lose complete authenticity as well. Well, and I was coming to you next, Richard, for just speaking about how the collector has changed, you know, over the years. going back, you know, 15 years to now the new generation that we all love to talk about in terms of, you know, their work ethic and all these different things and how they think and social media being so readily available and AI and just all these different things. But, you know, talk a little bit about how you've seen the collector change and the collectability market change over the years. So specific to diecast, the demographic, I think, is extremely wide.

I mean, that consumer that's going into Target or Walmart might be buying for a kid that's four or five that may be seen their first race all the way through to, you know, something old, 70, 80. There's a huge collectability there. I think over time we've seen the collectability has become and also this whole kid alt kind of category become much more of a theme overall. I mean, not just in DICAST, but in other categories as well. And that is, I think, born a whole sport to a certain degree with people of finding something to be their passion project. And Howard likes plates. I like records, maybe.

But everyone, I think, has got their own passion play here that they want to go after. Specific to Dicast, I think, you know, this category has been on a tear for some time. And, you know, there's different tactics that are being brought in. I mean, in the case of Lionel Racing, the pre-order mechanism, the scarcity, the different finishes, the authenticity are all important. If I think about brands like Johnny Lightning or AutoWorld that we own, in there, the chase programs become extremely important to those collectors. those very, very rare cars that are only a certain number. For example, we run a program called Ultra Raw, where even if we made 10,000 of something,

there would only be eight pieces of that ultra-roar in the assortment. For those, those people got the golden ticket if they get one of those ultra-raars. So we've seen those tactics being very popular with consumers, and you'll see whether it's in our categories or other people's brands when a new case gets opened at a mass retailer, the collectors running through the pegs to see whether they can find that golden ticket. So the energy behind the category, I think, has become so much more interesting.

And then the investment in the category as well, I think significant investment in tooling, in variety of products, in innovation, in licensing, those things, I think, have really lit up the diecast category. I wanted to ask about that, and Howard, you're probably better at, the one better at answering this specific to our diacast, the tooling.

You know, I think that's something when you talk about, it's one thing to realize that the products out in the marketplace are 12 and 18-month planning sessions. You know, it's amazing to me. They know the colors of fall, 18 months ago, right? The new colors for a haul. But, you know,

tools are another thing. You know, you guys introduced the new late model tool this a year, what, a couple years ago. And so what does that look like and what's that process? Explain that to the collectors and the fans

because that's a very important piece. You just can't, people are like, why can't you just make this can? You know, what does it take to make this? can, right? And that has been something that has evolved dramatically too. You know, so for the, so when we talk about the, will AI help us on that?

AI is very helpful in certain things. I'm not sure on that. We'll have to talk about AI and the DACAS business. I do have ideas for AI in the die cast business. But, no, what we really are dealing with, when we're, when we're dealing with the NASCAR cars, so the Cup series, the now O'Reilly Auto Parts and the truck series, we're getting CAD data from the tech center and we're getting CAD data from the OEMs, right? And so those pieces come together.

And so there used to be a whole process where there had to be a car built up. And then we would go out and take, you know, hundreds of photographs from different angles. We would take a long, not really a tape measure, but a measuring device that would allow us to tell scale. And we would send all those photos to Asia. And they would be sculpted. And you would go through rounds and rounds of, in fact, I'm looking at it. Yep, it's back up there.

Yes. Yeah. So it was like a two up and then it became a one up and it kind of scaled down. But that was that was where it started. And so that was the process. And now with CAD, you know, we basically take the CAD. We plug it into obviously CAD software, upload that to the factory. They 3D print a body shell.

And some of the things interpret when you go from real CAD data, right, real car, down to a 24 scale. It does require some tweaking. of some different things, but we go through that process. Once we get something we're happy with, that goes off to the OEMs and for approval. Then ultimately we make a wireframe because we need a wireframe for the art template. So the artwork is done on something

that looks like a steamroller kind of ran over the thing and splayed out all the sides, right? Everything comes out. And I'm sure our fans and the listeners here have seen it. But that template is designed specifically to go to the wireframe that goes to that specific car. And that's what allows us to wrap the art. and deliver the art in the exact location it is each and every time.

Now, the late model car was interesting because the late model car, a little less sophisticated, doesn't have CAD data. So we had to go, or at least the front didn't have the CAD data we needed. And so we actually had to borrow one of yours and put it into a 3D scanning room to actually get the car scanned, which we then ultimately started that CAD process. But yeah, we had to reach out and say, I remember that. Do you have a car that we could borrow? I do remember that.

We talked a little bit about, you know, the process thinking through how Dicasket made. And I don't, you know, people just don't understand the steps and timing. We've talked about that process of the molds. So, you know, take me, take me from beginning to end in terms of either someone brings you a program that's going to happen or a car, the host of a win. And the process and steps that that needs to happen in that time frame. Okay. They are a little different. When we're reacting truly in what's happened right then.

And then a car, it can be very, very planned out. So touch on the race win very briefly. So essentially, we have a photographer that travels to every single race as a company that takes photos for others as well. Their job is once that car goes through Victory Lane, they take rotations of that car art and they send it to us. By Sunday night, typically, unless there's some uniqueness to the win, which we've had with a monster, we have. some restrictions of what we can produce. So that's a little bit different. But generally speaking, by Sunday night, that car is out and available for sale.

We create item numbers, depending on what happens, what track, what sponsor, what driver. We put that out to our customers. So when I say our customers, the NASCAR.coms of the world or the teams of the world, you know, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, anybody who sells Docast. And then we also put it up on our site. And we immediately begin accumulating orders. I'll pause there. On a normal car, what will happen is we will get car art from the team. The timing of that depends on what we've kind of touched on. Does the sponsor want to hold it back?

Are they willing to work kind of in the background? When can we release the sales sheet? But essentially what happens is we get a piece of car art. We then have to transfer that car art onto our template. Our template then wraps onto the wireframe, which allows us to create a 3D, which is what you see on sales sheets or what you you see online. We establish item numbers for it. It goes through an approval process. So to make any car, we've got multiple licenses involved. We've got the team, which usually represents the driver team sponsor, although in historics and stuff like that, there could be multiple players in that space. We have a license with Goodyear that's an automatic. We have a license with NASCAR who has to approve it, and we have a license with whichever the OEM is. And so,

The OEMs typically have given us pre-approval rights based on, because they're really approving the marks on the car and the body of the car. NASCAR goes through and approves it and make sure everything while their marks are in place. And then the team is obviously checking for the driver team and the sponsor side. So once the artwork is put on to our template and is put into that 3D rotated, that view, that gets sent off, gets approved. Once we get approval, that gets uploaded to the factory. The factory then transfers it to essentially a decal supplier. So if you've ever done modeling, which we now have a whole category of models, there are the water slide decals, the kind of slimy little water slide decals.

That's essentially how we decorate the majority of these cars. And so a 24 scale will have roughly 18 different parts and pieces. So there's like the headlight area, there's the hood area, there's the roof flap. And somebody like the roof, when it gets put, down is an entire decal that somebody takes an exacto knife and traces the um traces the flaps and that's how on every single car on every single car so what part of these are automated or hand touched and done the deco is completely i mean it uses machines like it for so for the marks on the windshields that's a process we call tampo printing um it basically each station has a different

color so uh now they have multiple machines that do multiple colors so like you can hit like you can hit the black bar and then the white of the name on one machine. Gotcha. But somebody is taking that windshield, putting it onto a piece, it slides down, hits multiple times, and then puts it into the finish tray, and then takes the next one. And so, you know, but the body of the car is decorated by hand through these water slide decals, primarily. There's, there are exceptions.

Certain colors are better to be done through tampo printing. The metallics have to be done as a separate decal. so if we have a metallic number of car, which I think we've had over there. Yep. So that has to be done through a separate decal. But basically, after we've put the sales sheet out, we've tabulated the orders, we've placed the POs, the cars then get scheduled. So from PO to time the ready to ship is eight to ten weeks, it then goes in its package, which there's a whole other workflow for the package. Yeah, for approvals of all that.

That has to come together at the time we have finished goods. gets on a container ship. I'm tired already. Gets loaded here. Yeah. And then we ship it out. So it is a very exhaustive process. And so minimal, what can you do minimally in amount of time to make something happen?

For real production. Like if you just had everyone's cooperation along the way and. Yeah, I mean, you got at least. Of course you got an air freight or something. Yeah, air freight would be in. So you're at, I mean, you're four. Yeah, four months. months. And in most cases, it's probably a six or eight month process.

Closer to six. Yeah. Yeah. There are windows. You know, the other thing we contend with is, and people have heard us talk about this, Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is a holiday that moves around. Yes. Because it's the Lunar New Year. And so it has about a three to four week impact on the factories. Workers start leaving early. They're gone for the holiday. Then they trickle back. So, you know, that affects things. And it falls right around our Super Bowl, is Daytona, right? So it always makes it really challenging. Very challenging. Yeah, you know, some years, it's early. Some years it's late. This year, actually, it was like almost right on Daytona, which was nice because you've got all that time to work up to the big race.

So yeah, there's there's all these factors that are kind of happening. Capacity peak season, we're at a toy factory, right? So we're now entering peak season, which means there's a higher demand for workers. So we might have had a slightly better schedule going into this time of year. now it's going to elongate by a week or two weeks for these things. The other things is, you know, autographs, right? So that's a whole process, right? We've been on the bad end of that before, Waddell, and lately, though, we've been doing it on the really good end.

You guys are on my good list. I have a really good autograph story, though. Bless his heart, my son, Wyatt, had his first run of die-cast. 500 in some pieces, I think. Bless his heart. It took us days to sign because he's, you know, 14, and he's. working, figuring out his writing and everything and on those little windshields. And they got lost in transit.

And we had to tell him a few weeks later, wasn't their fault. Wasn't Lionel's fault by any means. But we had to tell him a few weeks later that he had to sign 300 and some again. And if that wasn't enough for him, at the same time, he had something else that went wrong. Oh, we were doing a sponsor thing. and he signed all the autograph. This was within a couple week time frame. He signed all the autograph cards.

And then the sponsor said, no, we don't like that autograph card. We won't to print a whole new one. And he had to sign them all again. It was a bad couple of weeks for Wyatt's signature on that. But that kind of thing happens. It does. I mean, we turn them over.

Unfortunately, like, so we go through a process, we have to, so, you know, if it's a race win, right, or a race used car, there could be confetti or whatever on the window. We have to actually send all, get all the artwork done, send it over, get that produced, send it to us, send it to the driver, wherever the driver is. They have to then sign it, right? It has to then come back to us. Then we have to take it and ship it back over to China to get reintegrated into the process. Yeah. And I want to talk about the

process of those racewind cars because I've been a part of that as well. I wanted to flip to you quickly, Richard. What's the governing body, as you were talking about, you know, approvals and all this kind of stuff and mentioning certain sponsors, you know, back in the day, we weren't allowed to put Budweiser on Dell's car and on the kit, you know, in the Walmart and all, it would have Dell's signature. What's the body that governs that, you know, in terms of the rules and all that you have to follow with, you know, alcohol or cigarettes or different things like that? Well, I think there's a lot of different companies that have their own rules. I mean, we're true that. We are driven by what the retailer will accept. I think the age grading of the car. And those things tend to be what

governs us. I mean, our general approach is here. We want to be as authentic as we can and put all that stuff on. But if we have no place to sell it, because they're not going to put it in the aisle. I mean, that's the route. But I don't think there's any overall governing body other than everybody gets to govern everything. Do you guys have to rely on your approval process to filter that? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean.

For the age ranges, for Z, you know, whether it's like the nicotine patches or whatever it is these days. So Joe Camel killed anything nicotine on, on any sort of toy product whatsoever. Remember Joe Camel? So that completely went away. Well, that's another thing. Are we marketing the kids through the graphics or whatever? Right.

I mean, there's all these conversations, you know, Monster, Red Bull. I mean, there's concern about, you know, marketing the kids. but you know, you know it. We go to track and dad walks up, buys the hat, hands it to his kid, right? Like, and I mean, like, I just asked the question the other day about non-alcoholic beer, you know, is it can someone who's 14 have a non-alcoholic beer? What's the rule? I don't know, you know? Yeah.

Not that you want to give it to them because you're, but the purpose of drinking non-acolic beer is so that you don't drink alcohol beer. That's right. So what's the deal? The lines are gray. The lines are gray. I mean, we do on toy products and really all of our products. consumer product safety testing is critically important. We use authorized factories that are certified.

Yeah, of course. You know, and then from there, it becomes a relationship with the team. And it could be a sponsor issue. It could be a team issue. You know, we have different restrictions to things we can place en masse, to things we can't place in mass, to, you know, sometimes we'll have a car. We'll have to drop logos out. It could be a rights issue.

You know, whatever, that right is no longer delivered through the team contract. So we have to take that off. So we always do, to Richard's point, right, striving to be authentic as authentic as we can, that's what we do. There are times we have to make decisions that are difficult. We will push back. I was going to ask that question. We will. Yeah, absolutely.

Is there been something that you really wanted to produce that you can think of that you didn't get the opportunity to? Yep. I mean, we've got Ty Gibbs first win, right? Right now that is not, we're not able to do because monsters on the car and that's a restriction. So we're trying to work with the team, and I think we'll probably get to some version that we can make. But we're kind of, you know, it's unfortunate that we can't authenticate that win, right? Like, and it's just because that's the way it is, right? You know, more, there was another win the season that the OEM mark got rubbed off the front of the car because there's contact, right?

And so. And they wanted it back on, I bet. Well, there were people that did. And we went back and said, guys, look, like, there are messages. out there asking us if it's going to be that way. Like, the fans care. They know. They know.

And the collectibles catch every detail. They do. And we share the shots, right? And so as a result of that, you've got all these people who are scrutinizing your work to make sure that it truly is authentic. And so we were able, that one we were able to get the OEM to agree, right? Which is the way it should have been done. And we were really pleased about that.

So is your photographer at the race events right away go to Victory Lane and shoot the car as quick, like as quick as they can. Do they wait until they get back to the shop? Like, how does that work? No, we, we, ideally, if the, if, every cup series event has the, the, the photographer. Occasionally, when the series break apart, we don't. Um, and then we have to go to the shop. But, uh, ideally what happens is the, the, the photographer gets to victory lane.

The celebration occurs. They snap shots of the driver celebrating. We go through all that. When the car gets rolled out, that's the moment that they shoot the car. we had a funny story. Like before tech? Yeah. Yeah, we try.

And so you have to work with NASCAR, obviously, to make sure that that. Right. It has to be an authorized photographer. They're going to be standard of top of you. Right. Exactly. But, you know, we had a funny one happened because with Chase Elliott's most recent when they shot confetti and the confetti like went that way, right?

And so two pieces hit the car. And that's the shot we shared. The track for whatever reason reshot confetti again on the car. And so people were like, no, I was there. Look at all this confetti. And so we're like, okay. So we actually asked the team to help us out to get more shots of the loaded car of confetti. And so it's, but it's this exact trying to.

Well, and that's an understanding that you have to have too. I was going to, I was thinking about that. I'm going to bring it up in terms of my experience with Wyatt's diecast when we won our first race at Hickory in the late model car. And immediately got a note. that said, if you guys can take pictures of White's car in case they want to produce the DACass. Well, of course, we're at Hickory Motor Speedway. We don't have a photographer on site. And, you know, with our background, I know that the more was better, right?

Like, I'm going to take every piece and inch. And Wendy, you know, in my office certainly understands that she's been in this business for a really long time. But you need to understand that because you could easily ask someone to take and they give you, you know, a viewer to. Or they think you get the whole car. they think you got everything you need, but you can't see the detail because you want to get the little scrub marks, you know, whether it's a solid scrub or a little jagged scrub or whatever it is, right? That's exactly right. That's what we're trying to replicate. Yeah.

I mean, you know, and it's the nuanced detail is what makes it, uh, makes it cool. We've replicated water bottles and different bottles that have been on there. You know, more recently we're starting to figure out ways to cut away parts of the car. Right. So we had Reddicks, Reddick's win in Atlanta where we did that with, um, that's cool. Remember the race version of. the traveler's whiskey car. So, and that's why we thought that car was authentic enough to do another version because

it had this missing chunk out of the car, which has been something fans have asked for for a very, very long time. We've done a really good job of replicating it through Deco. But now we have the ability to do it in a different way. And so we're always trying to innovate that stuff. Hey, this is Dela Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm old drink some beer T-shirt we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymo

media.com for all the latest merch. Are there some things that you see that you guys are bringing to the table in terms of that innovation that you maybe have identified to get into the diecast NASCAR world? So we make on the round two side a bunch of very limited edition diacast, not maybe to the same quantities as this 124th. but that is a big driver of our business. That said, when we think about the two businesses together here, we own literally thousands of tools across DICAS and also model kits

and Howard and I have been working through what content, what historic content is out there that we can bring back in a different way. And there's a whole bunch of different ideas that we're thinking through right now. So we're going to get a lot of content that maybe people haven't seen for a long time that we're going to be able to launch over the next couple of years. That's exciting. You know, some of the things that I miss with some of the different brands like Brookfield collectors where we had the duly's and the trailers and things like that,

you know, I've got a lot of those kinds of things in my collection that Wyatt loves to play with. You know, we have the haulers and we make a lot of the haulers and have those, which are authentic to our sport. But I think when you're thinking about what the, you know, what the audiences and the consumers can dive into, that doesn't have to be something. I mean, we have show car trailers.

We have all of that kind of something. But that's something that the kids want to play with, right? So that's exciting for the level of tools and stuff that might be opened up that you guys can collaborate on. That was a fun. We were just in China and we had a visit with. That's one of the things I never got to do was go visit China when I worked for action.

Anytime you're ready, let me know. I don't know. And I might like to visit back the end versus now. I don't know. I'm a weary traveler these days. It's a long trip. But it is, it is eye opening for, you know, for somebody who's like yourself who's been in this side of it for so long. And, you know, it really is very enlightening. But there's, there are a lot of resources out there. And, you know, round two had a resource that's going to open up some doors. So we're excited. what are some moments that you knew right away people were going to want to want to be made and would be collectible moments? Well, anytime you see Carciver's. I'm going to create a whole new nickname for him. Carson's win as one of those? Did you feel that it would be that big? Yes, we did. I got in the car. I was in China. I said to Richard, we had a good win this weekend, right? As soon as we got in the car. And by the end of the day there, night here, right? It was like, like explosive, right?

Actually, it was very interesting. Every time Howard opened his phone, it would be like, holy moly, like this is looking even better. Yeah, it was, it was awesome, right? I mean, so that we knew that right away. You know. What are some moments that might have surprised you that were good surprises? Maybe you thought, hmm, this is it going to work out.

So, unique sponsors that show up. One six in my head is the Guns and Roses car. I knew Guns and Roses. would be important. You know, driver wasn't one of our better sellers, typically. Boom, right to the top, right? So that one, you know, there's been a, there's been different things. The first jump man car, Michael Jordan jump man car, right?

That was big. Tribute to Kobe was big. Anytime Dale gets in a car, that's big. What are you seeing? I was going to, I was thinking about the announcement that we made this week with the patriotic cars for hendrick cars.com like a four pack i saw right away people were underneath on social are you going to make the four pack this is a four pack for lionel i think there's going to be a lot of opportunities particularly with the patriotic stuff going on this year unfortunately again

we're getting the cars kind of now right which i mean obviously we're not going to be able to make those but i do think for holidays there'll be some interesting four packs there'll be some interesting two packs we're looking at different things um maybe it's a whole patriotic uh sort of advent calendar that all of that is in the process again unfortunately the challenging one of the challenging parts of this is we don't control this we can't plan it and so we're we're sort of even on the normal stuff we're reactive to what happens and what we can do and so that makes it unique and and honestly makes it why we're special in what we do and I don't that doesn't I don't mean that to sound cocky but like the level of experience that we have

I think that's why our teams work so well together too, because a lot of the folks here were involved in the very early days of sports image and action, and we understand the plight for sure. Absolutely. And it is. It's challenging, right? It is not normal product development. And so all that nuance makes it complicated, but also makes it exciting and fun and all the

other things. Yeah, right. Do collectibles and fans kind of buy more with their heart, or do they have investment kind of in their brain? How do you feel about that, Richard? I think the heart definitely comes first by far. By the way, on the music front with Guns and Roses, you know, we've got into that music category on the round two side,

so we've just launched actually some motorhead die cast. We've just done some fender castings. You know, the music categories are, you know, a big category that we're really going after. I think passion of collectibility is what drives people first and foremost. are there folks out there in that secondary market that are trying to monetize, of course. But for that real passionate collector, if they get something which is ultra rare, they're going to hold on to it. Gosh, we've had a lot of great conversation.

Thinking about the collector, the next generation of fans, you know, the way we consume races, all those things these days. We're looking for the short, shortest attention span possible out of people, I think. And not that we won't that, but that's how it's happening, right? We're just, we're, we're, uh, don't have the same amount of time that we used to have to dedicate to things. We talked about wanting it yesterday, not tomorrow.

I'm so on. And we're consuming, you know, races and all those things in that same way. Why, how do you think die cast it? And what is the importance of Doccast as an entry point for young fans? I think it plays a huge role. I think it's, you know, when you see a little kid with a 64-scale car, right, of their driver, whoever their driver is, and maybe it's because dad or granddad or grandma or, you know, mom are super passionate about a particular driver.

It's an early childhood memory that they remember, that they really do draw into. And I can speak to my own son, right? You know, he's had some really cool experiences with me being in, you know, he's been multiple championships in Miami. Actually, one of his birthday parties was held here at junior motorsports. I mean, so there's been some really cool stuff. I mean, I was the coolest dad for the coolest dad's party ever for that one. But today, he has, he has one of those spinner displays that, that, you know, Dale's got

a bunch of. Y'all got you to bring those back. Yep, he did. Yeah, yeah. Well, we order them. Yeah, we just actually got a fresh load of them. But he fills it up. He fills it up with, and his driver was Jimmy Johnson, right?

And he's kind of a drift looking and, you know, Hosevar has popped his interest, right? And it's, you know, it's the driver wants to connect or sorry, the fan wants to connect to a driver or, you know, to experience it. And they watch it through that driver's. pathway, right? And so, I mean, firsthand, he started with all these little cars. Now he's into the big cars. You know, it's just, it's one of those things that it's an important gateway into the larger world of collecting. Yeah. It happened here yesterday right in front of my very eyes. We had,

we had, I'm going to say his name wrong, Khan Canuple. Yes. Plays with the Hornets. Yep. And one of our girls upstairs, her son was here, and he wanted his card sign, so he got his baseball card signed. And I knew he was going to get it signed, and so he was upstairs and he was hiding something. And I was like, oh, did you get your card signed? And he pulls out a race car.

He had quickly went and put his trading card down and grabbed his 88 race car because Raja was here. And so the next thing he wanted was to know, for Raja to know that he was holding his car. So that's the very thing that you're speaking at. And I was just thinking about, you know, why it, like right now we're just really still

into the toys and that kind of thing. You know, when does that transition kind of take place for people from that collectible standpoint that you kind of mentioned with your son, but you did a great job describing that. Yeah. So we already talked about a little bit of the role between the authentics car and the numbered

pieces. I want to talk a little bit about just what you're seeing in the way that just the changes that people are going through in collecting and what do you see in today's time. I mean, you know, so prior to working when I was actually a customer of action, I worked at a direct-to-consumer collectibles company. And honestly, you go to school, you do all these things. I learned the most there because you really understand consumer behavior. And one of the things that I witnessed there was as times got tough, people like to reward themselves with little things to make them feel better. And so- I call that retail therapy. That's kind of the modern name of it. Yep. And so as we're like, let's face it, right? This is, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world right now. And,

and, you know, and honestly, on the die-cast side, we were having a really, really good year. And that may be part of it. But I think at the end of day, I think what NASCAR is doing in terms of where content is being consumed is been good for the sport. It's bringing in new eyes, new ways of consuming it. Obviously, we all have multiple screens and our time is more cherished to your point earlier. So finding the connectivity or where you can consume that race is important. And the youth is important in the sport. It continues to be. It always has been.

there's always a there's an eb and a flow there you know you have a lot of veteran drivers who really build up big followings and big careers and then they kind of all sort of start to leave and then you have this next wave we're in that I feel like we really yeah I think there was like almost like a big wave of leaving a small wave of harvick and a few you know and then it's now it seems like there's this big wave of the new up-and-combers right and so that's invigorating to the whole sport you know and having teams, you know, from the die-cast side of things, having teams partner with us to get that driver out in front of the fans through autographs, through things like accessibility of the car

in different channels, really, really important to building that fan base and building people that are behind that driver. Yeah. You mentioned it. You know, we all, we connect to something through experience, right? And I think that's one of the things that I've seen just in, you know, dealing with our foundation or auctions or things that people are in tune to these days is a little maybe a little less stuff and more experiences. But at the same time, we connect to something

through an experience, right? So I love ladybugs. I love ladybugs because my mom, she was named after Aunt Ladybug and then she got a ladybug tattoo and then everything she gifted us through the years was ladybugs. And so I'm a ladybug collector, right? And that's my experience, right? And so all things ladybugs. And what are you seeing? What are we doing? Do you have a seat at the table with NASCAR? Because ultimately it takes the experience of racing to get to this point, to where you're going to have an affinity to want to take this home as a memory or want to collect these things, a little kid to grab it off the Walmart pig or whatnot. Yeah. We do. We have, actually, we're leaving here to have a meeting with NASCAR. But so yeah,

we're connected to NASCAR in a great way. It is. It's, I mean, they are the sport. But we're connected to the teams and we're connected to, you know, what's going on, the tracks, the sponsors. And we have to kind of balance all of those. It's an important part of not only gathering, and building this stuff, but it's, you know, it's about getting it out there and about ways to get it, distribute it. I think, you know, where we've talked about how do we engage more. There's a couple of events this year that we're out on the NASCAR Authentics line, kind of doing some stage stuff and made a couple of special pieces that are being distributed out there. Incorporating into the fabric, we have really great partnerships with like, you know, the merchandise haulers, the different

companies or a couple different companies that are out there running those really great relationships with them getting the product in front of the fans making sure that they're supported in the way that we can help do that the the tracks in their merchandise shops right um the victory lane shop we you know we have a die cast car um in in most victory lanes for these drivers yeah um all of these things you know the the dale junior download right it's it's how do we authenticate and connect with the fans. Yeah. With an authentic product that is the jersey of the sport.

And so that's kind of the ML. Yeah. At the end of the day, and you spoke well to it, you know, I think it's very important. And you mentioned Joe Mattis earlier, and he's always got his 52 cards up, you know, on the table kind of thing. But it's so important to understand everybody's objectives, right? What do you need to accomplish? What do I need to accomplish?

and if we, you know, can't meet in the middle, what's in the way so that we can get there? Because ultimately the sport is, you know, it's the driving factor for all of the different motives that we have, right, for us to win on Saturdays, for us to get great sponsors, et cetera, et cetera, for the collectible market to stay and grow and all of those things. So it's so important that we communicate together and we have those open ways of communication and understanding

and that we're open to learn, you know, and open to understand what works. You know, you're talking about the trackside trailers reminded me of, you know, when we went to the tent model of that and what a disaster that was and how everybody just loves the trackside. You know, they feel like they're just walking up to home base, right? Yeah. Yeah. To purchase something. So it's just so important. We've talked about so many great things. I want to kind of end kind of on a personal note. you know, if there's a family that understands collectible products is this one, the Earnhardt family.

As I said, I just said to someone in my office earlier, I wish I had enough wall space to hang up everything I have, right? Because we've got so many great things to share and to have and to hold on to that represent some incredible memories to me. Richard, what's something special in your life? Is there a dikeast? Is there a train? Is there a collectible in your life that just, just means something far more than the value of it, you know, to be.

I can't give you one thing. I mean, there's so many. There's so many records that I would say has been a personal passion of me since I was a kid. But on the toy side, I mean, I've collected more Lego than I would like to admit. And then, you know, over the years, having done that job at Toys R Us, I collected some really amazing pieces in my office at home. I've got some beautiful Gundam model kit collectibles that sit there that are just super special. They're one of a kind.

Those are the kind of things that you look at and you say, I'm never going to give up on those. Yeah. You've been in your role since March. Do you have a favorite die cast that you've put in a prominent spot yet? Well, interestingly, the first race experience that I had, at the track. We met Connor, who actually won that day. And we got to meet him. We got to get up close to his car. We went through the whole experience, which by the way is one of the most amazing experience having been to a lot of different sporting events in different countries around the

world. I mean, there's something extraordinarily special about the up close of NASCAR and the experience that you have with the drivers. But he won that day and actually we got a signed car. So I'll take I'll take that one. That's it. That's it. What about you, Howard? You got a special something? Is there just one that you can name?

You've probably got several. You know, so I do. And on cars, I have many. What I would say is my whole life has been in product development. Initially out of school, I was working for the very masculine Lennox China, doing bridal China and like plates, fancy plates, which is where I kind of got this White House thing. Then I went to Waterford Crystal and I helped build. the ball that fell in Times Square for 2000

and a lot of really cool products there then off to collectibles NASCAR. So I tend to collect things that I've had a hand in. And so like, you know, one of the things we did, which was really, really cool for the 10th anniversary of 9-11, we did the whole Richmond program. You guys were part of that. I have every one of those cars, every product we made,

you know, the hero cards from it. Like I have kind of the whole ensemble of what that was. You know, I've got, I've got, you know, pieces of the, the Times Square ball, like, with it I helped build on that project. Like, so new finishes. Like when we came up with stealth, which was that matte black sort of gray, I have a bunch of those, right? Just because they're cool. Through experience, like we talked about.

Yeah, it really, it really is. It really is. And they're all over. They're all over my office at home at work. And it's just, you know, when you're in product, They're almost like your kids. You like, raise them and then you like launch them off into the world, right? And you see how well they do.

That's right. That's exactly right. So for somebody that hasn't gotten into either die cast collectability or have their own diecast and we get, I get this question all the time. How do I get my kid in racing? How do you get started in die cast? What's the best, easiest route for someone to do? Because it can be complicated.

Yeah. When you get into the special stuff, yes. I think, I honestly think it's, it goes back to the driver. Pick a driver. Yeah. Pick a driver that you're going to get behind and you're going to follow and then, you know, decide what kind of collector you're going to be. Is it going to be the, every time you go see him race, you're going to want that car?

Is it, you just want a car every year? Is it that you want every car, completionist type thing? You know, and just, you know, get what you, get what you love. The reality is, I've been asked many, many times when I did the NASCAR collector show, many times. What is it worth? It's really what is it worth to you? What does it mean to you? That's the value of something. If you feel good when you see it, if it brings back a cherished memory, that that's really the value in all of what we do. Absolutely. Richard, years from now, what do you hope people say about Lionel and how they have protected this beautiful hobby that we have?

So for our group overall, and you asked the question earlier, I think it's an important one, is how we can protect all of the brands and all of them need to have their own individual identity, their own passion. And I think, you know, we have teams in North Carolina, teams in South Bend that are totally passionate about the areas that they're in. And if we do a good job of protecting the individual brands, Lionel Racing included, we'll get the thank yous and the revenue from the fans. We can't afford to lose those core attributes of the brand,

the things that people are passionate about, the collectability elements that we've spoken very specific to NASCAR today. We have to protect them. And that comes from the people that we have, the enthusiasts, the experts like Howard, who know this business inside out, back to front. That's what, you know, when we're all gone and we've retired, hopefully we've replaced it with folks that are equally as passionate.

at the care as much, they're ambassadors for the brands in the same ways. If we do that, we will have done a good job. All right, thank you for joining us on this episode of Business of Motorsports in the Arby's Studio. I really enjoyed it. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.