2024 Parkside Indycar

 

Known for producing women soccer cards, Parkside produced Indycar's first set since 2008 (Rittenhouse). Released in their hanger pack form there are 25 cards in each pack. Being an Indycar fan I bought up alot of these packs through their website. Here are the 25 cards.

82 - Alex Palou - race winner subset. One of five wins Alex Palou take on his way to the 2023 Indycar championship. Palou would go back-to-back repeating as Indycar champion in 2024. It's his third Indycar championship in four years for him.

116 - David Malukas - Indianapolis 500 subset. It was wild 2024 season for Malukas. Originally suppose to drive for McLaren he suffered a broken wrist in the offseason. McLaren release him from his contract without driving a single race for the team. Meyer-Shank Racing put him in the seat starting at Mid-Ohio and finished the season with them. A.J. Foyt Racing signed him to drive no. 41 car for 2025 season.

97 - Santino Ferrucci - one of my favorites for being ballsy and unapologetic about it. He finished 3rd at 2023 Indy 500. With Foyt Racing hooking up with Penske Racing in a technical alliance he had the most successful season in 2024 with a stunning pole at Portland and finished 9th in the standings.

119 - Devlin DeFrancesco - It's "Dammit Devlin!" for many mistakes he makes during the race as well buying a ride at Andretti. After sitting out 2024 season he manage score himself a ride with RLL Racing in 2025. I'm sure money got exchange for the ride.

50 - Conor Daly - after being unceremoniously dumped in middle of 2023 season he had a Indy 500 ride in 2024 where he finished 10th. Then he season expanded with one race at Dale Coyne then five races at Juncos-Hollinger. He did a good enough job he recently named the full-time driver for JHR along bringing the team much needed sponsorship money for 2025 season. Hard work pays off.

RE-1 - Streets of St. Pete - racing events insert set. St. Pete race in the first race of the Indycar season.

7 - Pato O'Ward (foil) - paralllel foil set. Pato is the most popular and top selling driver in 2004 season. After a winless 2023 season, he would take 3 wins and finished 5th in the points standings. One of his wins would come a month after the race ended when they found out Penske Racing manipulated push-to-pass system and disqualify the original winner Josef Newgarden. Pato who finished 2nd inherited the win.

93 - Indianapolis 500 (foil)

PP-BP - Benjamin Pedersen - Pit Pass insert set

MM-70 - Scott McLaughlin - Marquee Moments insert set

132 - Alexander Rossi - after two seasons at McLaren 2016 Indy 500 winner will be driving for Ed Carpenter Racing in 2025

105 - Will Power - another favorite of mines. Two-time Indycar champion and 2018 Indy 500 winner. Was in contention for the championship in 2024 but his seatbelts failed at the final race of the season. It's another line of championships lost in the final race for him.

160 - Katherine Legge

156 - David Malukas

146 - Christian Lundgaard - after scoring his first ever win (Toronto) in 2023 he went winless in 2024. He will drive for McLaren in 2025 season. Just hope he doesn't get hurt during the offseason.

1 - Alex Palou

49 - Conor Daly

145 - Jack Harvey

6 - Soctt McLaughlin - former Australia Super Car champiion Scotty Mac added 3 wins, 5 poles (one of them at Indy 500), and finished 3rd in the standings in 2024 season.  He's an early favorite to win the 2025 championship.

76 - Josef Newgarden - I was at this race. It's the best race I've ever attended. Sadly its Indycar's last race at Texas Motor Speedway and most likely to never return to the track. Indycar got a street race at Arlington driving around Jerry World and Rangers stadium in 2026. They went out with a bang.

INXT-KS - Kyffin Simpson - Indy NXT insert set. Indy NXT is the final step before going up to Indycar. The Barbados driver upgrade to an Indycar ride driving full time in 2024 for Chip Ganassi Racing finishing 21st in the standings. Thanks to his money he retained his ride at Ganassi unlike Linus Lundqvist who is way better driver than him.

67 - Tom Blomqvist - sports car driver was way out of his league in Indycar. Originally a full time ride he got pulled after a series of poor drives and crashing in the first lap of this year's Indy 500. He will drive for Meyer-Shank Racing sports car team in 2025 season.

70 - Marco Andretti - the grandson of legendary Mario Andretti only drove at Indy 500. He's also champion of defunct SRX series.

4 - Scott Dixon - "The Iceman" is a six-time Indycar champion and currently 2nd in all-time wins (57). He's also known for being the master of the fuel save strategy that have netted him many wins and leaving plenty scratching their heads how much did he save. Have won at least one race for 20 straight seasons. That's a big time streak.

8 - Pato O'Ward
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This set been a huge hit. Hope Parkside puts out another Indycar set next year.

2024 Topps Allen & Ginter (Fat Pack)

 

Got a fat pack of this year's Topps Allen & Ginter during Black Friday. There are 14 cards and what silly inserts are in this.

14 - Curtis Mead

98 - Sal Frelick

122 - Jose Reyes

238 - Todd Radom - graphic designer who have created team logos

182 - Dylan Cease

202 - Mark Feinsand - MLB Executive Reporter

208 - Usain Bolt - the greatest sprint runner with long line of Olympic gold medals and world records

265 - Ryan Murphy - another Olympian, this time in swimming, with multiple medals

34 - Jose Tnea (chrome)

257 - Greg Attonito (Mini AG Back)

107 - Cal Raleigh (Mini Gold Border)

323 - Fred McGriff

Buz-4 - Carpenter Bee - Buzzin' insert card featuring bees

SOS-32 - Pineapple - Star of the Show insert set featuring dogs that won the best in show of The Westminster Kennel Club. I wish they mention what year it won

This pack got the usual quirky variety featuring baseball players, baseball reporters, graphic desginer, Olympians, and critters.

2024 Topps Stadium Club Rack Pack

Greetings!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Before you know it, it'll be 2025.  That must be Topps' thinking when it comes to their releases post-pandemic.  Sure, The Virus pushed everything back a bit, but by now the Topps Release Schedule should be close to being back to where it was.  

"Sure, Stadium Club used to be a summer release, but the pandemic pushed us back, I'm sure we'll be back on track in no time...what, it's Thanksgiving already?"

Stadium Club was released on November 6...back in 2019 it was released in June!  $7 for 15 cards, 3 of which are Pink Foil Parallels.  Blaster boxes were $25, I got one of each...maybe I'll show off a Blaster pack one of these days.

Here's what I got:

#99 - Gabriel Moreno

#94 - Corbin Carroll

2 Diamondbacks start off the pack.  Kinda wierd, but it'll get wierder.

#12 - Jordan Lawlar (RC)

#104 - Joe Ryan

Hey if you're a D-Backs guy you're pleased with the first 3 cards.  Joe Ryan of the Twins ends the streak...

#188 - Byron Buxton

#154 - Pablo López

And starts a new one?  Real odd setup here.

#244 - Ichiro

#270 - Ken Griffey Jr.

2 Hall of Famers end the insanity.  But does that mean...

#247 - Cal Raleigh

Yep.  9 cards, 3 teams.

I think I've mentioned it before, but suppose this is your only baseball card?  Cal's a decent player so he'll get lots of cards, but suppose he was a September call up who had a game-winning hit at the end of the season, never played again, and this was his card?

#SF-10 Manny Machado (Special Forces) 

#290 - Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Red Foil Parallel)

Hey, it's 2 new teams here in the insert section.  Special Forces come 1 in 8 packs, while there's a Red Foil parallel in each Rack Pack.  That Vladdy looks like he's 20 feet tall!.

By the way, there's 300 cards in the set.  Time for the Pink Foils...

#261 - Albert Pujols (Pink Foil Parallel)

That's a nice Albert.

The design is standard minimalist Stadium Club for sure.  The script used for the first name can be hard to read at times.  

#298 - Sonny Gray (Pink Foil Parallel)

#275 - Nolan Arenado (Pink Foil Parallel)

You've got to be kidding.

12 cards, split evenly over 4 teams?  I checked around and it appears this isn't an isolated incident.  The blaster box I opened did have it's own oddities (guess that means I will actually have to show a blaster pack eventually).

#237 - Paul Skenes (RC)

You get a Chrome card in each Rack Pack, and it's the last card.  Is it pack searching if you can easily see the name of the player?  If it means anything, this was the first pack I picked up so it wasn't like I was going through stacks of packs.  I didn't get a Skenes in Topps Update, so this will have to do.

Here's the backs because tryptophan:

Anyway, that's the pack.  So, this team collation thing is pretty bad.  And it appears that there's not as many great photos of players this time out; there's more pointing and yelling and pitching and batting than unique shots.  But it's Stadium Club, so overall it's still a solid release.

Enjoy the holiday season, and thanks for reading!