Josh Wise’s No. 98 Ford won’t be black this weekend after fans were able to generate enough funds to sponsor his car through the use of social media.
For most of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, Wise and his No.98 team were racing against the best with no sponsorship funds to help support the cause. It is very likely that this situation would have not changed, had some fans not taken notice of Wise’s performance during Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway in March.
During the Food City 500 at Bristol, Wise left pit road and was barely ahead of the leaders when the race was restarted. Shortly after the restart, the leaders got to Wise’s back bumper but could not get by the unfunded driver. A few moments later, and to everyone’s amazement, Wise pulled away from the front runners. Wise was able to remain ahead of the leaders for about 50 laps before he wore out his stuff and eventually got lapped. Wise eventually finished the race with a respectable 23rd place finish.
But it was his gritty driving performance that caught the eyes of some NASCAR fans and Reddit users.
Just days after the conclusion of the race, 16-year-old Denis Pavel created a post on Reddit’s NASCAR community pleading for fans to help sponsor Wise’s team through the use of the digital currency, Dogecoin. Pavel, who is from Niles, Ill., also pitched the idea to Reddit’s Dogecoin community.
First launched on Dec. 8, 2013, Dogecoin is a digital form of currency that is kept in one’s virtual wallet (everyone creates their own virtual wallet upon creating an online account) that is located on a computer or smartphone. It can be spent on goods and services, traded for other digital currencies like Bitcoin, or even sold for traditional currencies like US dollars. With Dogecoin, anyone can use as little as one cent or as much as thousands of dollars with no major processing fees to hassle consumers during the transactions.
Both online groups immediately fell in love with the idea and began to receive funds in short succession.
“I knew that Dogecoin had done some significant fundraisers, like sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics,” Pavel said. “I was thinking what kind of response I would get if I did ask the (Reddit) community about sponsoring a Sprint Cup car. They were all with it.”
Wise and team owner Phil Parsons were immediately contacted during the fundraising process. Parsons informed the community that it would take an estimated $55,000 to fund the car for Sunday’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
It was no problem as both the Dogecoin and NASCAR communities raised enough to sponsor the car in just eight days. It took a total of 67.8 million Dogecoins to reach the target quota.
“I can’t thank the Dogecoin and Reddit community enough for the support,” an elated Wise said before quoting the unofficial slogan of the Dogecoin community: “To the moon!”
As a token of gratitude for getting his car sponsored, Parsons allowed the both communities to design and vote on the paint scheme they wanted see on Wise’s No.98 Ford for this weekend.
“It’s been so cool because having a crowd-funded car like that, we had a lot of excited people that contributed,” Wise said. “And also people that are part of Dogecoin and the Reddit community… For a small team like us and for myself as a driver who’s really trying to break out in the sport, it’s been just a really awesome opportunity.”
With the immense support from the Reddit community, Wise has become a regular on the website, often engaging with fans and other members.
This story has an incredible and triumphant ending for Wise and his team, but it also serves as an example to the public of how much the world has changed.
Without question, the public realm has changed drastically. More than 10 years ago, something of this nature would have been near-impossible to achieve since social media was almost non-existent at the time. No group could have had the ability to organize a fundraiser of this magnitude in this short a time because there was no medium in which fans could interact with the drivers and teams to orchestrate a cause of this nature.
This story should serve as an example to the public of the immense power that social media has. And while it is still very early to assume how the dynamics of fundraising and sponsoring will change, this scenario could foreshadow more events of this scale.
A new age is coming.
And this age might finally allow the Davids of the sports world to compete with the Goliaths on a fair level.
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