My wife and I made our annual trip down to Pensacola,FL, and as we have done in the past, we went on a guided fishing trip.
I was wearing my "Ford Racing" hat, and the guide asked "you into racing, huh?" I told him, "well, into cars, or better yet, into Fords. But, yeah, I do watch the Nascar races."
Fast forward to us trolling for mackerel around a wrecked ship, the Massachusetts, about a mile or two offshore. There were probably a dozen other boats around the same place, all looking for kingfish and spanish mackerel, a busy time of year for that kind of fishing.
I spotted something white floating on the surface very far in the distance to the west. I pointed it out to our guide, who decided to go check it out. Not unusual for a tourist to fall asleep on a float and drift out to sea. It was far off, but definitely not a boat, so he decided to take a look.
As we get closer, I start to make out a shape. It's the shape of a car. It has writing or signs on the side, like a racecar. I tell the guide, "I think it's a racecar." He says, "you got racing on the brain or something." Sure enough, we get close, and I see the number "6" on the side. "Hey, that's David Ragan. He must have gotten lost going to the pits." The guide still doesn't believe me, but when we get close enough, he says "Jesus, fifty people out there fishing and the car nut finds a racecar floating in the middle of the ocean." Here's a pic of me after I pulled the thing in the boat:
When we get ashore, I start looking the thing over. It's the number 6 car, but it's not David Ragan, it's Mark Martin, who drove the car last year, the last Ford he raced in. It's not a toy, as I first thought. It's a display for a store, with three hooks on top to suspend the car from the ceiling over a display. It says "not for consumer use. For display only. Property of Kraft, inc."
It looks brand new, but I thought it was a heck of a story for a Ford Racing buff in the middle of the ocean to find an inflatable Nascar item that was never for sale. Don't know if it's valuable, don't care. It looks cool in my shop!
The guide got a good laugh out of the whole thing, and when he asked if I had any kids to give the racecar to, my wife said "he wouldn't if we did have kids."
Today
