BURTON, Mich. (AP) – Carole Mansfield can still see the proud, boyish grin on her late husband’s face every time he came home with a new prize for the mammoth NASCAR collection that flooded their home.
“He’d say, ‘This is added to your inheritance,’” she said.
It turns out Monte Mansfield was right.
Sales from some of the most unassuming items in their collection are paying for the college education of their 19-year-old grandson, also named Monte Mansfield.
“It’s a gift of a lifetime,” said the younger Monte, a 2009 Atherton High School graduate who has so far paid for all of his $1,200-plus costs at Mott Community College this semester via sales of NASCAR collectibles only true race fans could crave.
His grandfather’s collection of more than 300,000 NASCAR postcards are the hot ticket-item.
The giant-size cards sporting driver’s photos and statistics are usually doled out for free at the races. To some NASCAR die-hards, they are what trading cards are to baseball fanatics and the elder Monte Mansfield seemed to own nearly every one from 1969 to 2006 – the years he and his wife attended races around the country.
Depending on the driver and date, NASCAR card values range from less than a dollar to more than $6 apiece, according to trading card sites that sell them.
More than 2,000 NASCAR cards were so far sold to pay for the younger Monte’s tuition, books and other costs.
“He always wanted Monte to go to college,” Carole Mansfield said of her husband who died at age 68 in 2007. “That was his grandpa’s dream.”
Young Monte, who has mostly lived with his grandparents since he was 4 years old, said his grandfather was outspoken about finishing college.
“I’m taking school very seriously,” he said. “I can’t slack off. This definitely adds more pressure.”
His grandparents were hooked on racecar driving after their first visit to the Michigan International Speedway in 1969.
They went on to live in a NASCAR lover’s paradise that included breakfasts at the North Carolina home of racing superstar Robert “Junior” Johnson and baby-sitting champion Darrell Waltrip’s daughter.
Outside of the NASCAR cards, thousands of other racecar treasures deck the downstairs of the Mansfield home.
There’s the tire off of champion Richard Petty’s race car, spark-plug keepsakes and shelves packed with matchbox cars and haulers that paint a colorful floor-to-ceiling collage on the walls.
Other quirky valuables include a can of STP oil scribbled with famous autographs, a standup cutout of No. 26 driver Jamie McMurray and race programs spanning several decades.
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Information from: The Flint Journal, http://www.mlive.com/flint
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AP-CS-12-07-09 1721EST