In March 2014 the same subreddit that had bought Jamaica a plane ticket bought a NASCAR paint scheme. Denis Pavel, 16, of Niles, Illinois, had watched Josh Wise “race the wheels off” an unsponsored car and asked r/dogecoin and r/NASCAR whether a joke coin could put Kabosu on a Ford. In about a week the community raised more than $55,000 — 67 million DOGE is the figure Wise later confirmed on a Reddit AMA — converted it to dollars because “the engine builder, tires etc don’t accept doge as payment YET,” and sent the No. 98 of Phil Parsons Racing to Talladega on 4 May 2014. He finished 20th. Two weeks later the same internet voted him into the Sprint All-Star Race over Danica Patrick.
What the Dogecar was
The Dogecar is the name the community stuck on Josh Wise’s sponsored sheetmetal in the 2014 Sprint Cup season: first a voted black/gold/silver scheme for Talladega, Kabosu on the hood and rear, Dogecoin marks, Reddit on the decklid, a rocket, “to the moon” as a visual joke. The Verge published the first photos from Phil Parsons Racing on 28 April 2014 and had to correct an earlier pass that called the car a Chevrolet SS. Talladega weekend it was a Ford Fusion. Later All-Star desks sometimes wrote Chevrolet. Cite the desk in front of you; do not invent a manufacturer war.
This is spectacle with a receipt, not a racing dynasty. Wise was an underfunded Cup driver on a tiny team — he told CNN they had seven or eight employees. Pavel had watched the bobsled drive and asked what would happen if you pointed the same hat at a 2.66-mile Alabama oval. The hat said yes.
What people confuse
| Misconception | Record |
|---|---|
| Dogecoin owned a NASCAR team | One (then a few) race sponsorships on Phil Parsons Racing’s No. 98. Wise was the driver. PPR was the team. |
| They won Talladega | 20th. Washington Post, 5 May 2014. The win was existing. |
| The DOGE paid the engine builder directly | Wise’s AMA: 67 million raised in DOGE, converted to dollars. Moolah staff posted from the garage. That conversion is why the Moolah wound later sits next to the proudest 2014 pictures. |
| The All-Star berth was a purse they bought | It was a fan vote. Reddit and Dogecoin users voted. Clint Bowyer and A.J. Allmendinger advanced on track from the Showdown; Wise advanced from the ballot, beating last year’s fan-vote winner Danica Patrick. |
A sixteen-year-old and 67 million DOGE
Pavel’s pitch and Phil Parsons’s surprise: the owner “didn’t really know much about Dogecoin or Reddit” until a teenager DMed the team on Twitter. Pavel said he knew the coin had sent the Jamaican sled to the Olympics and wondered what the response would be if he asked for a Sprint Cup car. “They were all with it.” The Guardian, 27 March 2014: eight-day drive, 67 million DOGE, 1,200 donations averaging about $41, £33,000 in their sterling print. CNN: more than $55,000 in a week. doge4nascar.org let people vote gold, silver, or black. Black is the scheme in the surviving photographs. A community timeline from that spring records Moolah dumping 20 million DOGE into the hat on 24 March — “silly keyboard.” That tip is why the conversion shop sits inside the proudest pictures.
Wise took the Reddit name dogedriver, ran an AMA, and answered the conversion question without romance: the money was raised in DOGE; it had to become dollars because NASCAR vendors did not take the coin. A Moolah staffer named Jonathon posted in that AMA with a paddock photo. Palmer’s later Moolah dossier is why this page will not launder the conversion partner into a footnote. The car was real. The paint was real. The dollar pipe ran through a shop that would blow up in October.
As far as the sponsorship went? Yes it was raised in doge! 67 million! We did have to convert it to used because the engine builder, tires etc don’t accept doge as payment YET! :)Josh Wise, Reddit AMA, 5 May 2014
4 May 2014, Talladega
Aaron’s 499. Restrictor-plate chaos, 200 mph class, the race Pavel had picked because it was the loudest stage on the calendar. Wise finished 20th. The Washington Post treated the Shiba on the car as the news and the finishing position as the punchline that still counted as a day in the sun. NBC Sports and the AMA thread filled with shibes who had never watched a Cup race. That was the product: new eyes on an underfunded car, and a coin that could now say it had been around at 200 mph.
The fan vote, then 15th
Charlotte, mid-May. The Sprint Showdown paid Wise $26,962 for 18th, which did not transfer him on merit. The fan vote did. Autoweek called it one of the bigger upsets in recent All-Star history: Wise over Patrick, Stenhouse, Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson. USA Today quoted him on the 110 million people who used Reddit and the kids who had never watched NASCAR. He started his first All-Star. r/dogecoin’s paddock math the next morning: Showdown $26,962 plus an estimated $90,000 for 15th in the All-Star, about $117,000 in two days for a tiny team, and a reported 10% toward a charity of the community’s choosing — on the order of $9,000. Treat the purse figures as period forum arithmetic sitting on a Jayski PDF, not as audited statements.
2015 tried to keep the joke on the car: a white scheme, Kabosu on the rear still in the pricing, Daytona missed on a fuel-pump failure, Atlanta as the start. The 2014 weekend is the one the archive keeps as a complete act.
What it left
The Dogecar is how a lot of Americans met Dogecoin who would never open a wallet. It is also how the friendliest coin learned that spectacle shares plumbing with people you should not have trusted. Read tipping culture for the gesture. Read Dogecoin for Moolah. Keep the photographs. Keep the scar.
Questions
Who paid for the Dogecar?
r/dogecoin and r/NASCAR donors, organized in public by 16-year-old Denis Pavel, about 67 million DOGE converted to roughly $55,000 for Phil Parsons Racing and Josh Wise’s No. 98 at Talladega.
Did the car win?
20th at Talladega. The All-Star berth was a fan-vote upset over Danica Patrick; Wise finished 15th there.
Sources
Primary texts for this chapter. The full index lives on Doginals sources.
- Reddit, Dogecoin support NASCAR racer at Talladega — CNN
- Dogecoin raises $55,000 to sponsor Nascar driver — The Guardian
- First photos of the NASCAR Dogecoin car — The Verge
- Josh Wise drives the Dogecoin car to 20th at Talladega — Washington Post
- Thanks to 16-year-old fan, Wise has Dogecoin backing — Motorsport.com
- Josh Wise Reddit AMA — AMA Transcripts
- Josh Wise stuns Danica Patrick in All-Star fan vote — Autoweek
- Josh Wise wins fan vote, beats Danica Patrick — USA Today