1994 Optima XL:  NASCAR playoffs start today!  We'll kick off this estate auction pickup with Dale Earnhardt.  Seven championships and 57 wins are impressive enough.  But even better was his persona - a hero to every fan who wanted to see a hardnosed, no-nonsense driver who was willing to do whatever it took to win every week.  Probably the most popular driver of all-time.

This was a local estate auction that worked like eBay.  I'd never seen this set before and was able to snag the lot for $2.  There were also some open wheel racers as part of the lot which I may show off some day.  What I didn't know was these are widevision sized.  No issues with that and I was very happy with the cards.  The Spotlight cards were the first 30 cards with some drivers having multiple cards.

This is a promo/prototype.  I wish there were more like this one.  I like having the driver and car so prominent on the card.  "Valvoline" is distracting but I can live with it.

I love the backs.  Nice write-up and all the stats I want.  Plenty of color, photo and even car graphics in the background.  1994 was Jeff Burton's first full season in Cup racing.  In 2000 he would finshed a career high third in the standings.  Now an announcer for NBC, he was announcing two weeks ago when his son Harrison won his first Cup race.  

A Winston Cup Scene card.  I like the vertical look.

More Winston Cup Scene cards.  I like the out of the box photos.  The first and last are Red Parallels. Jeff Gordon would go on to win his first championship in 1995.  Jimmy Spencer put in a hard day's which net him a win in the Pepsi 400.  

Trophy Case celebrates driver victories.  This one is Sterlin Marlin winning the Daytona 500.

Ken Schrader, Ernie Ervan, the back of Mark Martin's head and Rusty Wallace.

A couple of Newsmaker cards as well a Ernie Irvan Double Duty card highlighting his roles as both a driver and an owner.  I had some doubles, and they'll work well as bookmarks.  I'll keep some favorites but I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest.

A couple of Racing Families cards as well as the back of trophy case card.

Kelley Earnhardt, daughter of Dale, brother of Dale Jr. is the Chief Executive Officer of JR Motorsports.

I'm really glad I won this auction.  The cards sharp, have really good photos and there's a great variety of stars from that time frame.  The Michael Waltrip and the Kyle Petty are two my favorite photos from this set.  That Kyle Petty is a prototype.  Only difference is the backs from his standard Spotlight card in the set.